The U.S healthcare system has undergone various reviews to help improve the dissemination of healthcare services to Americans. The recent and most talked about healthcare reform is the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which took effect in 2014. During this year, the Act developed or established various essential elements that determine the dissemination of healthcare services to the people. The components include:

New Consumer Protections prohibit insurance companies from denying coverage, renewing insurance policies, or charging higher rates due to pre-existing conditions or gender. It also forbids insurance companies from setting annual limits on coverage per individual.

Improving quality and lowering costs, the Act endorsed quality improvement and price containment and provided tax credits for people with income between 100%-400 % poverty line. It also reduced cost-sharing for qualified people (US Department of Health and Human Services, n.d). Third is the tax credit increase for small businesses and nonprofit organizations to provide health insurance for their staff.

Increasing access to affordable care; increased access to affordable care, such that Medicaid was available for those who earn less than 133% of the poverty line. The states also received 100% funding from the federal government for three years to support this expansion.

The patient Protection and Affordable Care Act has proved to be successful in reducing uninsured Americans. This increased number of insured Americans has a massive impact on the nursing and healthcare industries. As more patients get insured, the demand for care will also increase. However, nursing education is increasing past pre-pandemic levels in the next two years, closing the shortage by 2029 in California (Spetz et al., 2022). Retaining nurses and creating strategies to alleviate nursing shortages is crucial because this causes poor care and poor health outcomes.

References:

Spetz, J., Chu, L. & Blash, L. (2022). Forecast of the Registered Nurse Workforce in California. The University of California San Francisco. https://www.rn.ca.gov/pdfs/forms/forecast2022.pdfLinks to an external site.Links to an external site.

US Department of Health and Human Services. (n.d). Affordable healthcare during the historic open enrollment period. https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2022/01/27/biden-harris-administration-announces-14-5-million-americans-signed-affordable-health-care-during-historic-open-enrollment-period.html