Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

In the beginning of the year 2010, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) was passed and enacted legislatively by Congress in order to increase public access to health care at a reduced cost. The ultimate goal of the ACA was create a better overall atmosphere for workplace heath and safety by making healthcare more affordable. However, the passage of the ACA did have some unforeseen consequences in regards to worker compensation. The ACA was passed in order to increase government funding which would cheapen medication costs for the average American worker and thus make more effective healthcare more affordable. For most American workers there is often a “doughnut hole”, or coverage gap in their healthcare plan. This means that some of their expenses may be covered by employer-provided healthcare and social programs like Medicare or Medicaid may cover some, but there is often a gap between these two plans in which the individual must pay large amounts out of pocket. This usually happens as when employer health care plans run out, there is a certain amount of money that must be paid out of pocket before governmental coverage plans kick into effect. This results in many workers not taking necessary medications during the coverage gap in order to save money, but adversely affects the health and safety of workplace environments, as people are not getting the treatments that they need. The ACA is not only increasing governmental funding to shorten the gap from the tail end, it also is aimed to create more employer-provided healthcare, which would father shrink the coverage gap from the front end as well. To do this, the ACA created a requirement that stipulated all companies that employed over 50 people for more than 30 hours a week would have to provide healthcare for their employees. This was intended to have a positive impact on health and safety in the workplace by creating more health-care coverage plans; however good intentions may have