The United States is heavily watched around the world in terms of politics or any other action as it is one of the leading countries of the world. Recently, the United States caught the eye of the world in its recent debate of the health care reform. Most commonly referred to as “ObamaCare” the official name is the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) or for short, the Affordable Care Act (ACA). President Barack Obama on March 23, 2010 signed the Affordability Care Act into law to reform the health care industry and it was later upheld by the supreme court on June 28th, 2012. “The goal of ObamaCare is to give more Americans access to affordable, quality health insurance, and to …show more content…
Before the law you could be denied coverage or treatment because you had been sick in the past, be charged more because you were a woman, be dropped mid-treatment for making a simple mistake on your application, and had little or no way to fight insurance company appeals. Today all Americans have access to a large number of unprecedented new benefits, rights and protections. The major ones outlined by the healthcare reform are there are many of uninsured persons who will get access to affordable quality health insurance through the marketplace, thus 82% of uninsured adults will qualify for free or low cost insurance. Insurance companies are not allowed to dismiss you when you are sick or if you make a mistake on your application. Neither can you be denied coverage or charged more for pre-existing conditions such as being sick. Another benefit is that young adults are able to stay on their parent 's plan until the age of 26. Also there is better care and protections for seniors and “essential health benefits like emergency care, hospitalization,prescription drugs, and maternity and newborn care must be included on all non-grandfathered plans at no out-of-pocket limit” (ObamaCare Facts n.d). Additionally, you cannot be charged more based on health or gender. ObamaCare helps to curb the growth in healthcare spending with reforms to the health industry to cut wasteful spending. Seeing all of these benefits, …show more content…
Marmor, puts forth a comparison of the healthcare systems of Germany, Canada, England, Japan, and France to the United States. “Each, as distinct from the United States, has created a universal health care program fundamentally based on the idea that medical care is a merit, not a market good. The equal access standard does not, of course, mean ideal practice, but care is more equally distributed as a result” (Marmor p.569). This is now what ObamaCare seeks to do by imposing on the health care system that is seen to be run by private-profit companies, whose bottom line is money and not health. This idea of medical care being a “merit” and having more equally distributed care are two factors entailed in ObamaCare. This is where the elements of democracy - freedom, equality and solidarity once again come into play. Healthcare becoming more equally distributed directly deals with equality which is directly linked to solidarity and the sense of belonging or acceptance as those previously without healthcare are now in the