Obamacare:A blessing or curse to the US’s Health Care System

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) or ACA colloquially known as “Obamacare” enacted in 2010 by President Obama, had three cardinal goals: to increase number of citizens insured, improve quality of health care and finally bring down the cost of health care. This complex act crafted by democrats lacked bipartisan support since its inception and continues to brew contention to date. Being one of the highlights of president Obama’s tenure, “ Obamacare” ,despite expanding the net of the US’s health care system to cover more Americans has had grave economic implications on both the health care system and affiliated sectors and continues to remain unsustainable.

A major success of the act has been the increment in insurance coverage levels. During the period 2010 to 2016, uninsured individuals declined from 49 million individuals to 27 million respectively (Obama,2016). Among the individuals in this net are dependants aged up to 27 years who make up over 2 million young adults (Akosa,2013). A marked decrease of 5.5% in adults who could not afford care was also realized. These numbers go to show individuals who previously could not access health care due to high cost were able to afford health care at no or at low cost. An elimination of out-of-pocket spending affords financial security to these parties.