Category: Affordable Care Act

Introduction

The United States of Americas political system is described as democratic with Republican and Democratic parties forming the majority. Since time in sundry, exercising democracy during elections, especially on campaign platform, has reached maturity. In any presidential election, it is apparent that a Democratic Party nominee faces off with a Republican Party nominee.

Americas presidential election results are often determined by policy inclination and practicality as perceived by the public and technocrats. Specifically, the politics of the Tea Party and the Affordable Care Act have closely interacted in the past in the opposition of the ObamaCare.

Directly, the Affordable Care Act is one of the tests of popularity of the Tea Party outfit against its opponents. Thus, the influence of the Tea Party in the Affordable Care Act cannot be dismissed. This analytical treatise attempts to explicitly discuss the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) and the Tea Party on the tenet of how these topics interact with each other.

The Affordable Care Act

Despite the controversy it courted, the ObamaCare (Affordable Care Act) has presented a comprehensive health policy which mainly adopts the redistribution economics to ensure that every American is covered under the scheme (US Department of Health and Human Services par. 11). Despite initial rejection by a section of Americans, the policy carried the day as it promised to make health very affordable to the low income groups. At present, the only challenge is implementation since it will have to cover very many people.

Through partnership with insurance companies, this policy has been described as basically what the Americans need after the just ending financial crisis characterized by reduced disposable income. This policy has been successful in Norway and its only determinant of success in America will be its implementation module. As proposed in the policy, the aspect of individual mandate has been supported by both houses and even President Obamas opponent from the Republican Party.

The aspects of fairness, objectivity, and transparency define a policy. Objectivity minimizes biasness and prejudice when drawing a policy. On the other hand, fairness involves collective consultation with stakeholders and adopting consultative decisions. Transparency involves the aspects of proactive reviews that are consistent with the performance evaluation and monitoring system. Reflectively, the Affordable Care Act proposed by President Obama contains all these aspects within its scope.

This policy on healthcare is objective and targets to make healthcare provision affordable to the upper and lower economic ends citizens of America. It has specific projections and intentions that are multifaceted and based on recommendations of the expert and other stakeholders. The transparency aspect of this act is that it has the target monitoring unit and active reporting channel during implementation (Wittes 17).

Though very complex, the Affordable Care Act is intrinsic of the demand and supply in the market, social, and public demands against a backdrop of manageable cost constraints of health provision in America. The main components of the policy can be quantifiable for viability, ease of implementation, and realization of the intended goals which are reducing the cost of health provision and providing health insurance to all the citizens of America.

The ObamaCare Act has special interest on the multiple disadvantaged Americans who could not afford the private healthcare systems of the day. Multiple disadvantaged groups in health status refer to groups within the population that are victims to worst health risks due to healthcare policy discrimination.

Due to their low socioeconomic status, they are not able to afford quality Medicare. Disadvantaged groups strain to get healthcare services due to low income bracket. Often these groups exist within the larger population as is the case in America where low income and middle income brackets are more than 80% of the population. Due to their low living standards, these groups are the major beneficiaries of affirmative healthcare actions provided by the Affordable Care Act (IIzetzki 2).

The Affordable Care Act has two parts. The first part deals with health insurance. The second part is the Medicare insurance coverage which helps pay for the doctors services, outpatient hospitals care, and some other medical services that are not provided by part A. There is no need to pay a monthly payment (premium) for part A since taxes paid prior to the retiring from employment are earmarked for this cover. Part B, on the contrary, assists in the defraying the cost for these medical services when needed (IIzetzki 3).

The Tea Party

The tea party is a populist American outfit associated with libertarian and conservative inclinations on political and economic policy implementation and functionality. As a movement, this association has direct influence on political future of America and policies debated and passed by the congress.

Specifically, resounding interest surround the influence of foreign currency on the dollar as a protectionist assembly of tools for mass influence. This outfit offers its members a platform for awareness creation on the economic, social, health and political factors that directly affect the Americans.

Reflectively, several private individuals with republican, libertarian, democratic, and independent inclinations identify themselves with this outfit. This community perceive themselves as true Americans who would do anything to protect and reaffirm the constitutional founding upon which their nation was laid by statement. Tea party movement consists of members drawn from all professional fields. The members of this outfit are united by their perception on how the political leadership of the US is handling its duties and policies.

The Tea Party has remained in the front line in promoting democracy within the US through promotion of freedom of speech by sponsoring its members of parliament to pass critical bills and hold series of pro or anti government protests. Basically, sustainable democracy as enshrined in the beliefs of the Tea Party outfit offers a practical sketch map for intellectual development and political maturity.

Thus, this group endeavors to campaign for sustainable democracy which ensures reliable governance and democratic issue base confrontation of challenges affecting the citizens from insecurity, social justice, and respect of human rights. Reflectively, sustainable democracy as a concept of the Tea Partys institutional approach is applicable in reforms and offers a solution based management of government institutions.

In the realms of social secularization, the transitional facilities of the Tea Party outfit assist the institutionalization of units of the American society to create an accepted mode of interaction. The operating mechanisms of these efforts are in the traditional and economic development of the US societal conditions promoting public interest. Interestingly, many of the Tea Party members oppose the ObamaCare (Defund ObamaCare now par. 7).

The Tea Party and the Affordable Care Act

Process evaluation examines actual implementation and development within a specific act such as the Affordable Care Act. Reflectively, the independent Tea Party has reviewed the quantifiable fulfillment of targets of the Affordable Care Act as unfair to the middle income household since they view the act as an opportunity for the government to collect more taxes.

On the other hand, impact evaluation examines long term changes that have surfaced as part of the success or failure of a project. It examines the long term effectiveness of policy based programs after implementation. The Tea Party members from the republican inclination are in the forefront of impeaching the Affordable Care Act because of the fear of letting the government to run their healthcare (Defund ObamaCare now par. 7).

Since the Affordable Care Act is an intriguing idea, the Tea Party focuses on a mirrored reflection of what a society would like to visualize from a string of intertwining ideas. Instead of adopting the impersonal consciousness, stepwise process, and absolute necessity assumptions aimed at creating a sustainable, friendly, and acceptable irksome feeling to the ObamaCare, the Tea Party has adopted a partisan approach in their criticism. In fact, it is only the minority members who seem to oppose the act in totality.

At quantitative level, the Tea Party outfit does not adopt the expected continuous process of embracing both ecological dimension and internal operation engine as a measure of variance between the benefits and demerits of the ObamaCare. Thus, it is apparent that the Tea Party is likely to lose its objectivity since their negative stand on the ObamaCare is not supported by any public poll. Thus, they cannot claim to be representing the interests of the true Americans in opposing the Affordable Care Act.

Personal reflection

Change advocacy is a necessity towards actualizing ideas acceptable to the society. Irrespective of the social and economic climate in which change agents operate, the questions to consider in change advocacy revolve around policy solutions, engagement, administration, and change argumentation. In the America society, citizens have adopted bureaucratic, ideological, legislative, and mass appeal to advocate for change.

The Tea Party outfit operates on the bureaucratic, mass appeal and ideological appeal when supporting or opposing government act. Under the bureaucratic arrangement, individual involved is often an expert with vast experience in the subject of change. For instance, in the new health plan proposed by the Obama administration, experts have presented a well researched optional approach into health provision to the government decision makers with an intention of convincing this group to accept their proposal.

In practicing ideological advocacy as a means of influencing change, individuals sharing the same ideology can mobilize together in protests and demonstrations to express their dissatisfactions to the decision making organs for appropriate actions as is the case with the Tea Party outfit.

Conclusion

The ObamaCare has given special attention to the disadvantaged groups in health services provision. The ObamaCare has made healthcare affordable and easily available to the poor Americans. However, the Tea Party is against this act since the bureaucrats have proposed better approach towards provision of affordable healthcare to the Americans.

Just like any other political or social outfit, the Tea Party has considerable influence on the successful implementation of the Affordable Care Act. From this discussion, it is apparent that individuals sharing the same ideology can mobilize together in protests and demonstrations to express their dissatisfactions on different government policies.

Works Cited

Defund ObamaCare now 2013. Web.

IIzetzki, Ethan. In its opposition to the Affordable Care Act, the Tea Party is not defending the ideals of the founding fathers, but subverting them. 07 Oct. 2013. Web.

US Department of Health and Human Services. Affordable Care Act. Cat. no. Washington, 2012. HHSgov. Web.

Wittes, Bejamin. Campaign 2012: Twelve Independent Ideas for Improving American Public Policy, Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2010. Print.

Introduction

There has been a lot of attention from the media with regard to the recent Affordable Care Act in the United States. Little focus is given to how the new Act is going to affect the young and elderly receiving Medicare. This paper takes a critical look at the Affordable Care Act with an aim of analyzing its affordability, benefits, and quality as well as other key features.

Affordable Care Act

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is the new law based on reforms in the United States health care. It refers to two separate Acts which are Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act 2010 (Rosenbaum, 2011). This Act gives an expanded Medicaid coverage to low-income Americans. The ACA provides access to care by providing coverage needed for the American citizens.

Once rolled in 2014, the ACA will allow millions of American individuals and families to access subsidized insurance coverage. The Act provides lower costs of insurance coverage, and makes insurers more accountable by setting standards be met (Rosenbaum, 2011). Furthermore, the act guarantees coverage for pregnancy and disability, or other pre-existing conditions.

The law gives Americans more access to insurance coverage as well as safe-guarding their rights. The legislation also removes dollar limits on the coverage and prohibits insurers from dropping coverage when individuals get sick on an unintentional application (Rosenbaum, 2011).

The Act also allows Americans to make appeals on insurers coverage decisions and allows individuals to take control over their health care issues. It sets new coverage options for young adults, senior adults, women, businesses, families with children, and people with disability. In addition to the above insurance related benefits, the ACA provides essential medical benefits such as preventive care, doctor visits, hospitalization, and prescriptions (Rosenbaum, 2011).

The ACA is projected to make Medicare more fiscally efficient through the application of cost savings. The law provides incentives to health care providers so that they can formulate strategies to provide high quality health care, and eliminate costs, wastes, and abuses in the Medicare (Family USA, n.d.). The Act will ensure that beneficiaries pay and receive high quality medical care. To achieve this, the law reins on unnecessary spending by health providers.

These reforms will save Medicare billions of dollars. The Act imposes financial penalties on hospitals when a patient acquires infections from the hospitals (Family USA, n.d.). This move will improve hospital care and save money spent on paying for health care. Finally, the Act will improve the health care delivery efficiency, by reducing wastages within the system. Therefore, the high quality care and efficiency created by the new law are among the many methods through which the Act is fiscally efficient (Family USA, n.d.).

The opponents of the ACA point at a number of issues about the consequences of the new legislation on the Medicare program. First, they argue that the law will reduce the autonomy of physicians, and hence reduce job satisfaction (Williams, 2013). The consequence of which they believe will be passed on to the patients.

They foresee patients being restricted from accessing, or having to wait for long for appointments, and receiving rationed health care services (Williams, 2013). They regard the Act as having negative impacts on jobs and the overall economy. They argue that the price controls imposed by the legislation on Medicare will be a disincentive to in the medical sector, thereby reducing investment in health care (Williams, 2013).

On the other hand, the proponents argue that this framework increases access to affordable Medicare for millions of low-income Americans and increases the provision of quality Medicare in a more pragmatic and efficient way (Family USA, n.d.). In particular, the proponents of the ACA point out that it gives people the liberty to take charge of their own health matters.

This gives autonomy to the beneficiaries to plan for their health issues instead of leaving it at the discretion of the insurers and health providers (Family USA, n.d.). Additionally, the proponents also point out that the ACA introduces the culture of prevention by encouraging beneficiaries to work together with physicians and caregivers in order to reduce health costs through adequate preventive measures (Family USA, n.d.).

The ACA will strengthen the Medicare program in the country. First, the Acts top priority is fighting fraud in the Medicare program that has inhibited the delivery of quality health care to many Americans. Secondly, the legislation guarantees many benefits to many Americans who have been denied access to Medicare for a long time through discriminatory tactics.

Finally, the Act reforms the Medicare program by offering medical providers with new incentives to improve the quality, as well as eliminate costs and abuse to preserve the benefits for all Americans.

Conclusion

The ACA was enacted with a primary purpose of increasing access to Medicare for millions of Americans. The law has received a lot of attention from the media due to the arguments leveled for or against it.

Proponents argue that the Act is a landmark reform in the Medicare program that guarantees access to affordable and quality medical care to all in the United States hence benefiting many low-income Americans. On the other hand, opponents argue that the reduction of the autonomy of health providers and physicians, works negatively against the economy. These arguments can be proved early next year when the Act will be enforced.

References

Family USA. A Summary of the, Health Reform Law. Web.

Rosenbaum, S. (2011). The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act: implications for public health policy and practice. Public Health Reports, 126(1), 130-135.

Williams, A. (2013). Why are we against the Affordable Care Act?New York Amsterdam News. Web.

Introduction

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is a bill passed into law by the U.S. president Barrack Obama in the year 2010 (Goodson 12). This act is normally referred to as Obamacare. The act is one of the most important government developments and regulatory revamps in the United States healthcare system in the last 50 years.

The act mandates all insurance companies to provide medical insurance cover to all claimants regardless of their social background, sex, race, or ethnicity. The chief aim of the acts drafters was to reduce the number of uninsured Americans. Before and after the passage of this law, critics asserted that the law was a threat to everyday workers.

Despite the fact that the law was meant to reduce the cost of medical access for the low-income population, critics argue that the law would ultimately leave employees worse off. Skeptics argue that the law would cost jobs, suppress economic recovery programs, and cause business doubts. This paper seeks to highlight the microeconomic effect of the act. In the paper, the effects of the act on an everyday worker would be highlighted and evaluated.

Positive implications of the act

Currently, the top three issues of the U.S. health care system affecting the employees are reduced access, reduced quality, and increased costs. When the act will be fully implemented in the year 2014, the government expects the act to tackle the above health issues. The U.S. health care system has continuously faced multiple challenges.

By the time the government stopped its heavy-handed managed care in the 1990s, the cost of health care services had risen sharply as the number of uninsured individuals increased. Before The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was passed into law in the year 2010, the number of uninsured individuals was estimated to be more than 46 million (Goodson 35). Equally, during this period new medical technology, pharmaceuticals, and workforce were in great demand.

As the countrys life expectancy continues to increase, its population will continue to age leading to more chronic health issues. In the year 2006, the U.S. healthcare system was reported to be among the most costly system in the world. According to these reports, the U.S. government spent over $2 trillion in health care expenditure during the same year (Pipes 56). These figures are disturbing since the above expenditure represents 16% of the countrys gross domestic product.

In the act, several mechanisms have been outlined on how to tackle the above issues. These mechanisms are mandates, tax credits, and subsidies. Within a period of 10 years, this act will ensure that every American has access to quality and affordable health care services. Through this approach, almost every employee would be covered by the health insurance scheme. Therefore, quality healthcare services will be accessible to all employees.

Economic consequences

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the act will lead to significant job losses. It is estimated that the act might lead to 650,000 job losses. An analysis by business owners group indicates that the employer mandate enshrined in the act will ultimately lead to eradication of up to 1.6 million jobs for the next five years. On the contrary, Centre for American Progress insists that with the passage of this act 250,000 to 400,000 jobs would be created within a period of ten years.

Critics have refuted these figures arguing that the CAPs analysis relied on unsubstantiated cost estimates. At the time these conflicting approximations were released to the public, economists send President Obama a note indicating the economic consequences of the proposed bill. In the letter, the economists indicated that the bill contained some provision that would threaten job creations, reduce working hours, reduce wages, and reduce jobs.

According to the economists, the job-killing stipulations contained in the bill were New Tax, New and Increased Medicare Taxes, and the Employer Mandate. Through the New Tax provision, the act seeks to collect over $500 billion in the next decade. Notably, a larger share of these taxes would be collected from small business owners.

This implies that these individuals affected would see their capital being reduced resulting in stunted economic growth. Through this, everyday workers, who have been employed by these individuals, might lose their jobs. Equally, New and Increased Medicare Tax provision will affect the small business sector. Given the fact that millions of Americans are employed in this sector, their future employment is at stake.

As time passes, the provision would reduce the wages earned by these employees. In general, the above stipulation would threaten jobs and reduce economic growth. Another stipulation contained in the act that would affect employees is the Employer Mandate. This stipulation seeks to enforce a tax of up to $2000 per employee in an organization hiring more than 50 workers.

The tax would be applicable to all organizations that do not provide health insurance to their employees. Similarly, through this stipulation the government aims to tax all employers offering unaffordable health insurance schemes to their employees. It is apparent that the employers affected by this stipulation would reduce employment opportunities or passed on the insurance burden to their employees in terms of lower wages and reduced work hours.

Impact on low-wage employees

Substantial evidence indicates that with the passage of this law, low-wage workers were likely going to be affected than other workers would. As the act discourages employers from recruiting new workers, they will be forced to come up with other means of reducing the cost of doing business. Economists have pointed out that for higher skilled workers employers would obey the government directive and offer the required benefits. However, these employers would compensate the cost by reducing these employees wages.

On the other hand, economists have pointed out that employers would be offered with little reason to offer medical insurance cover to their low skilled workers. Therefore, employees would reduce job creation and employment for this category of job workers. Given the fact that the number of unemployed adults without a high school diploma is on the rise, this act would greatly affect the lower wage employees.

Some economists argue that in some situations, some employers would find that it hard to reduce the wages offered to their employees. To survive in such situations, these employers would respond through other ways. These ways would include outsourcing, reliance on temporary agencies, and increasing part time employees. Through these approaches, employers would bypass the act stipulations because the mandates do not apply to these approaches.

Loss of existing insurance coverage

Some economic experts assert that affordable care is too costly. In this regard, several employers would shun away from offering their workers with health coverage. In this event, employees would be forced to seek government-run insurance schemes. When the act will be finally implemented, it is estimated that millions of American employees would be unable to maintain their current coverage.

For instance, early this year a firm by the name Universal Orlando declared that it was planning to stop offering health coverage for its part time employees (Schmidt 10). The firm asserted that Obamacares prohibition of yearly benefits to be enforced in the year 2014 was going to increase their operational costs. According to the firms human resource manager, the plan was going to affect more than 500 employees in their organization.

Another organization that will drop coverage for some of its employees is Deloitte. According to the companys reports, more than 10% of the companys employees would be affected by the plan. The individuals who will lose their coverage would be forced to seek new government-run exchanges. With these illustrations, it is apparent that millions of American employees together with their dependants would lose their current insurance covers.

Increase premiums in the individual market

Currently, the effects of the affordable health act on premiums have generated heated debates in America (Ross & Betsy 12). Others argue that when the act would be fully implemented in the year 2014 premiums would sky rocket. On the other hand, some individuals argue that with full implementation premiums would reduce significantly.

Notably, the Obama administration is divided on the issue. Other individuals believe the cost would rise while others do not. Some experts have warned that premiums would vary depending on individuals age or sex. As such, women may realize lower cost in their premiums unlike men. Equally, older customers might experience a drop in the price of their premiums unlike the younger generation. According to Miliman Consulting Firm, premiums would increase next year by 9%.

The firm argues that the increases would be in order with the current premium hikes. The firm asserts that the increases could have been witnessed regardless of the act in place. With these discrepancies, Americans have to wait for next year when the affordable health plan would be fully in operation to realize the impacts of the act. This implies that it is now difficult to estimate the full impact the program will have on American employees and employers.

Conclusion

Although some consequences of affordable health care are debatable, it is apparent that the plan would result in reduction of employment for less skilled laborers. Therefore, Obamas administration should put in place measures that would ensure that the less-skilled laborers do not lose their jobs. While these measures are in place, the administration should answer several questions concerning the myths that have been generated by the media and the employers on the effects of this plan.

Some employees have the wrong impression of the effects of this plan. Thus, the government should sensitize the public on the possible effects of this act. During the sensitization programs, the government should not be biased. Through this, the employees would learn about the implications of this act on their careers. Similarly, the government should be ready to amend the act if it reduces jobs or slows down the countrys economy as critics allege.

Works Cited

Goodson, Jefferson. The patient protection and affordable care act. New York: Viking, 2010 . Print.

Pipes, Sally. The truth about Obamacare. Washington, DC: Regnery Pub. ;, 2010. Print.

Ross, Betsy. Beating Obamacare: your handbook for surviving the new health care law Washington, D.C.: Regnery Pub., 2013. Print.

Schmidt, Paul L.. Medicare and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Hauppauge, N.Y.: Nova Science Publishers, 2013. Print.

Introduction

The Affordable Care Act changed many aspects of US health insurance and the healthcare system. One of the most significant changes was the Medicaid expansion because it allowed many Americans to receive benefits and afford insurance. Consequently, the abolition of the ACA will take away this opportunity from many people, which will significantly reduce the demand and supply for health insurance and affect the purchasing power of citizens and the labor market.

Impact on the Health Insurance Market

The first most significant and predictable impact of the ACAs potential repeal is reducing the demand for health insurance. Popken (2017) notes that ASA has created 20 million new insured clients, which is a significant number of clients for insurance companies and healthcare providers. Since there is no other plan today that could replace the ACA, its cancellation is likely to result in the same insurance conditions that were in 2010. This fact means that most Americans who cannot afford insurance due to low income will refuse to buy it. At the same time, the consequences of quarantine and the pandemic are the loss of jobs by many employees, which only increases the number of people who cannot afford insurance. Consequently, the repeal of the ACE will cause a sharp drop in demand and affect both the work of insurance companies and healthcare facilities.

A decrease in demand will also lead to a reduction in supply because it will not be profitable for companies to offer a variety of insurance plans for people who cannot afford them. In addition, the ACA also had clauses on the compulsory services that insurance must cover and the elimination of discrimination against people with illnesses; thus, its cancellation could also reduce the offers for individual private insurance (Guo et al., 2017). In other words, if these requirements do not work, companies can reduce the number of insurance plans to a minimum but increase costs to cover the shortage due to low demand. Thus, health insurance can become even less affordable for the population.

Effect on the Labor Market

Moreover, the lack of insurance for most people means the unavailability of medical services, which will increase costs and decreases the number of jobs in the healthcare sector. According to Wishner and Burton (2017), the adoption of the ACA forced healthcare providers to adapt to the growing demand for medical services; as a result, thousands of workers were hired in clinics, emergency, and information centers. Consequently, since many Americans cannot afford medical services because of their high cost, their demand will also fall, as will the need for medical personnel. Thus, thousands of unemployed will appear in the labor market due to the low supply of jobs. Such changes will also negatively affect the US economy because a high unemployment rate leads to a drop in government revenue from taxes.

Impact on Citizens Purchasing Power

Another consequence can be a decline in the demand of buyers for various goods and services or a decrease in their purchasing power. In their study, Caswell and Waidmann (2017) noted that residents of states that expanded their Medicaid programs had improved their financial situation. However, the potential repeal of the ACA will lead to opposite outcomes due to higher insurance prices, larger medical bills, and unemployment.

First, the loss of jobs for thousands of healthcare workers can lead to a difficult financial situation in which they cannot afford to purchase devices, cars, entertainment, or other things that are not essential for life. People who lose their benefits but are forced to buy insurance because of their health conditions or pay bills themselves can also cut costs. This prognosis also applies to people with low income who will have to cut costs to pay medical bills in the event of illness or urgency. At the same time, the threat of COVID -19 and its severe consequences for some people shows a high probability of treatment costs for any person. Consequently, the demand for various non-essential goods and services will decrease due to the high costs of healthcare services that do not correspond to the income of most people.

Conclusion

Therefore, the repeal of the ACA will harm the supply and demand of health insurance, healthcare jobs, and consumption in general, due to the elimination of benefits for the low-income population. First, Medicaids return to 2010 conditions will make many Americans unable to afford insurance, which will reduce demand for it and medical services. For this reason, companies can fees but decrease coverage to generate income from people who need and can afford insurance. The jobs created after the adoption of the ACA will become unnecessary, which will reduce the supply in the labor market, and many health workers will lose their jobs. The lack of insurance benefits, the high cost of healthcare services, and increased fees will force the population to cut their costs, which will reduce the demand for non-essential goods. Consequently, the repeal of the ACA will harm almost all areas of the US economy and affect the health and financial stability of a significant part of the population.

References

Guo, E., Jacobs, D. B., & Kesselheim, A. S. (2017). Eliminating coverage discrimination through the essential health benefits anti-discrimination provisions. American journal of public health, 107(2), 253254.

Caswell, K. J., & Waidmann, T. A. (2017). The Affordable Care Act Medicaid expansions and personal finance. Medical Care Research and Review, 76(5), 538571.

Popken, B. (2017). An Obamacare repeal could affect your workday  and your retirement. NBC News.

Wishner, J., and Burton, R. (2017). How have providers responded to the increased demand for health care under the Affordable Care Act?The Urban Institute.

Reduce escalating healthcare costs

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) aims to reduce escalating health costs by tightening control regarding healthcare rates and procedures while prioritizing primary care, prevention, and efficient interventions (French et al., 2016). Americans accessibility to prior healthcare treatments and drugs, care affordability, and self-reported conditions improved significantly. It demonstrated that broader coverage through insurance premium payments by employers or individually had enhanced physician accessibility.

Expand Access to Insurance Coverage

The Act requires employers to insure their employees or face punishment. The government provides tax breaks to certain smaller firms and mandates that individuals have health care coverage. Consequently, the percentage of uninsured Americans declined, notably among non-students, the unmarried, and men (French et al., 2016). It increased the number of people visiting health facilities and additional working hours spent by health practitioners.

Promoting Health Workforce Development Is a Key

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) addresses labor force concerns with measures, such as reform proposals in graduate medical training education, additional health profession loans and scholarship programs, and assistance for nurse practitioners training courses. Additionally, assistance for fresh models in primary care like medical residences and management teams for chronic illnesses (French et al., 2016). Healthcare professionals gained additional training and education, allowing them to perform better and manage resources in healthcare institutions.

Healthcare Administration Complexity

Coding and billing inefficiency, as well as practitioners effort invested in reporting on quality metrics, are examples of administrative complexity and wasteful spending in the healthcare industry. Due to the peculiar nature of the healthcare industry in the United States, any customer unsatisfied with their treatment has few options other than hiring a lawyer, which increases cost while providing no benefit (Tseng et al., 2018). If it is repealed, price lists will be made available to the public, and Americans will have affordable access to care.

References

French, M. T., Homer, J., Gumus, G., & Hickling, L. (2016). Key Provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA): A Systematic Review and Presentation of Early Research Findings. Health Services Research, 51(5), 1735-1771.

Tseng, P., Kaplan, R. S., Richman, B. D., Shah, M. A., & Schulman, K. A. (2018). Administrative costs associated with physician billing and insurance-related activities at an academic health care system. JAMA, 319(7), 691.

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) was enacted to protect consumers from fraud, waste, and abuse in the healthcare system. The ACAs primary requirement is that healthcare providers establish and maintain an effective compliance program to prevent and detect fraud, waste, and abuse. To meet this requirement, healthcare organizations must implement a compliance program. For example, the organization must appoint a compliance officer and committee, develop written policies and procedures, provide staff training, conduct internal monitoring and audits, enforce disciplinary rules, and regularly evaluate and improve the program. The Saratoga Hospital program includes all of these components, focusing on racial equity in health care. According to Michener (2020), ACA policies aim to address racial disparities in the healthcare sector. Therefore, the inclusion of this item in the programs of medical institutions is an important step.

Another requirement of the ACA is to prevent false diagnoses and treatments for profit. To avoid this, healthcare organizations should regularly provide compliance training for all staff, including physicians, nurses, and administrative staff (Sullivan & Hull, 2019). This training must include not only a medical perspective but also a legal one. The organization should establish a hotline to report potential fraud or abuse and investigate any reported incidents thoroughly.

In addition, the ACA requires reducing opportunities for fraud, waste, and abuse in healthcare. According to Sullivan and Hull (2019), one way to achieve this is to use cloud-based computing to maintain medical records for everyone (p. 55). Automation of processes and information technology in patient care will reduce the ability to correct information in records for fraud or waste. In addition, this approach will help to identify and stop existing violations faster by improving data analytics.

References

Michener, J. (2020). Race, politics, and the affordable care act. Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law, 45(4), 547-566. Web.

Sullivan, C., & Hull, H. (2019). Preserving life and health by preventing fraud in healthcare. Journal of Business and Behavioral Sciences, 31(1), 48-58. Web.

One of the undeniably positive impacts that ACA has had on the health care delivery is the increased access to healthcare for the people with preexisting conditions (Shi & Singh, 2014). However, the opponents of the Act continue to claim that it somehow limits their access to the medical help. That notion can be easily disproved by analyzing the main provisions of the Act.

The opposition to the Affordable Care Act has mostly political and irrational roots. Most of the outspoken critics of the reform belong to the Republican Party, which has spent millions of dollars on the TV commercials aimed to destroy the public image of the ACA (Dalen, Waterbrook, & Alpert, 2015). The attitude towards the expansion of the subsidized health care is exemplified by the derogatory term Obamacare which is an obvious play on the party members opposition to the current government. Even now, when the benefits of the new system become more obvious with each passing year and the prophesized economic collapse is not happening, it is too late for the Republicans to back down. They have put too much work into trying to demolish the Act. One of the main attack vectors for them was a claim that the ACA causes people to lose their insurance. Many heartbreaking ads were aired showing people who apparently have been left uninsured by the ACA. However, the investigations by the media have shown every last one of them to be fabricated. And it makes a lot of sense. How can the Act which does not include a single point about limiting or revoking access for certain individuals leave somebody without a health care plan? Quite on the contrary, the ACA allowed more people to get access not only to the Medicare and Medicaid but also to the private insurance plans.

One of the main provisions of the Affordable Care Act is the prohibition to limit access people with preexisting conditions have to certain insurance plans. Previously, a person with a serious chronic illness like cancer or AIDS could be denied insurance or faced increased payments. That had a tremendously negative effect on the predicted health outcomes for those people. For a person with a serious chronic disease spending more money on a healthcare plan meant less money on other everyday necessities and some people, who fell into a marginal group with income high enough not to be covered by Medicaid, could find themselves unable to pay the increased rates imposed by the insurance companies. That situation did mean that an individual could be unable to get the help they direly need. With the enactment of the ACA that is no longer an issue since this sort of the clearly unethical behavior is legally prohibited. Even ignoring the other aspects of the Act, that point alone makes the ACA a worthy addition to the US law.

The politically charged discussions surrounding the Affordable Care Act are extremely detrimental to the publics understanding of that piece of legislation. The negative publicity given to the Act by the Republicans means that people do not fully understand its implications. Most of the critique aimed at the law was either fabricated or fueled by those fabrications. The dishonest political approach can result in the legislation being revoked if the Republican president takes the office this year. However, reviewing the law clearly shows the benefits it provides for the people who need protection.

References

Dalen, J., Waterbrook, K., & Alpert, J. (2015). Why do so Many Americans Oppose the Affordable Care Act?. The American Journal Of Medicine, 128(8), 807-810.

Shi, L., & Singh, D. A. (2014). An Update on Health Care Reform in the United States. Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlet Learning.

Introduction

Passed into the United States law by President Barrack Obama, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) is a cardinal statute. Coupled with the Health Care and Education Reform Act of 2010, the PPACA forms the backbone of the 2010 health care reforms agenda. These laws cover transformation of health insurance market, offering improved coverage for people with pre-existing status, expanding prescription drug treatment in Medicare, and prolonging the life of the Medicare trust fund by 12 years in the minimum. Although the United State federal government believes that PPACA will go a great length in improving health care delivery, I hold that it will undermine the quality of health care but the big question remains, how will the act jeopardize the quality of care.

Implications

The PPACA has triggered numerous waves of opposition from radical organization (Williams & Redhead, 2010, p. 57). The organizations have raised various allegations against the act. The provision of the Act will get its funds from various taxes and offsets. Significant sources of fresh revenue imply a broadened Medicare tax on proceeds above $200,000 and $250,000, for individual and coalition organizations respectively, and 40 percent tax on Cadillac insurance policies coupled with more taxes from pharmaceuticals, and expensive diagnostic equipments (Grier, 2010, p.14). Offset are derived from projected cost savings including enhanced equality in the Medicare Benefits programs relative to customary Medicare.

Such increased taxes translate into increased cost of health care provision. Health care organizations implement unprecedented strategies to cope with the demands of the act. The health organizations may use strategies like buying cheap clinical equipments and reducing staff to adjust the cost of health care delivery. The House republican argued that the PPACA would result in a loss of 650, 000 employments based on the Congressional Budget Office (Brooks & Lori, 2011). Thus the low quality of equipment use and reduced number of staffs availble to cater for the increased demand add up to low quallity care.

PPACA will increase the number of residents that have health insurance, thereby increasing the demand of health care services. This change is attributed to the tax credit the act endorses on small businesses (Levey, 2010, p.5). However, this increase is inverse to the medical equipment and phramaceuticals available in health care facilities because of the aforementioned rise in their taxation.

Noteworthy, the rising health cost will affect substantially on the federal budget in the next ten years or beyond. However, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) a considerable portion of expenditures on health care contributes little to residents health (Elmendorf, 2010, p. 7). Increased cost of health care will imply that health care organizations will have to struggle to cope up with the rising cost, which may even push them to closure.

The impact of PPACA on the health care stakeholders is dramatic. By virtue of giving the government too much involvement in health care, its quality is deemed to fall, because private organizations will be limited leading to very minimal competiton (Barbieri, 2010). Competiton usually helps to boost the quality of care because organizations will try to outwit one another and in so doing, they implement the latest technology and employ many qualified staff members. Nevertheles, this is not possible with the the PPACA act.

Finally, the increase in health care may make profit-based health care organization withdraw from the market. This may leave few organizations in health care industry, thereby leading to competiton for the scarce health care resources. Competition will mean a high provider-patient ratio resulting in reduced quality of health care. This will lead to congestation of health care facilities.

Conclusion

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act elicit a heated debate regarding its validity. Although this act is alleged to boost health care provision, it should be extensively researched to etsablish its actual implication on health care provision and the federal government should make the necessary amendments, so that it achieves its objectives.

Reference list

Barbieri, R. (2010). CNN poll: Americans dont like health care bill. CNN. Web.

Brooks, J., & Lori, R. (2011). A job killing law? FatCheck. Web.

Elmendorf, D. W. (2010). Presentation to the Institute of Medicine: Health cost and the federal budget. Congressional budget office. Web.

Grier, P. (2010). Health care reform bill 101: who will pay for reform? Christian Science Monitor, 4, 13-14.

Levey, N. N. (2010, December 27). More small business are offering health benefits to workers. Los Angeles Times , pp.5.

Williams, E., & Redhead, S. (2010). Public Health, Workforce, Quality, and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). Congressional Research Service (CRS). Damascus, MD: Penny Hill Press.

An individual’s socioeconomic status, whether evaluated by income, level of education, or occupational status, has been linked to various health issues. It has been proven as one of the significant factors that determine one’s perception by society and, most notably, their access to opportunities. It is unfortunate that health care, a basic human need that should be available to all, is one such ‘opportunity’ that many do not have access to due to their socioeconomic status.

Evidence shows that an individual’s socioeconomic status is a reliable indicator of ill health and early mortality. Individuals ranked lower in the socioeconomic order tend to suffer from ailments and exhibit higher mortality rates disproportionately.

Historically, the world over, differences in mortality rates based on social class and occupation have consistently been documented. The 2016 National Healthcare Quality and Disparities Report of the United States, for example, shows that for all but one measure of access to health care, poor people experience worse access to care compared with people with high income.

Various justifications have been postulated to explain these disparities in accessing adequate health care. However, evidence has shown that the healthcare system has become a revenue-driven sector, with hospitals and physicians focusing more on earning higher revenue than actual patient care. Countless cases have been reported of lower-income earners being turned away from hospitals or being denied various lifesaving procedures and medication due to a lack of insurance coverage.

The lack of health insurance coverage means that individuals will postpone seeking urgent medical care or miss out on preemptive maintenance. This also means that such individuals do not have access to a regular doctor and have limited access to prescribed medical procedures and medication, which renders them more likely to be hospitalized for medical conditions that could have been averted with early diagnosis and timely action.

The cost of accessing health care has also become too expensive (right from the doctor’s fees to tests and procedures to medication) that those economically disadvantaged cannot afford it. Many American citizens with well-paying jobs have their healthcare funded by their employers, which is often included as a fringe benefit in their job packages. This excludes those in occupations that do not pay as well and therefore come with no fringe benefits.

It is also heartbreaking to note that numerous Americans have been forced into bankruptcy, homelessness, and all sorts of complications while trying to keep up with healthcare bills for themselves or their loved ones, sending them into a downward financial spiral.

This problem is further compounded by the fact that comparatively lower levels of expenditure are allocated to social services. Free medical clinics are few and far between. They are consistently overcrowded, with patients having to wait long hours to be attended to by overworked healthcare workers, and often experience shortages in much-needed medications.

Efforts have been made to rectify the situation by enacting the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which seeks to address these gaps in the healthcare system. It has led to unprecedented advances in medical insurance coverage by availing Medicaid coverage to low-income individuals. The number of uninsured nonelderly Americans decreased from over 46.5 million in 2010 (the year the ACA was enacted) to just below 27 million in 2016.

Evidence indicates that the expansion in insurance coverage access has improved low-income individuals’ ability to access medical treatment while promoting the health and financial security of those insured. There have been considerable increases in the number of individuals with personal physicians, reported ease of access to medication, and a decline in the number of those unable to access healthcare and reports of poor health.

Contrary to predictions that the expansion in insurance coverage would negatively affect the labor market, private-sector employment has been consistently on the upsurge since the ACA’s enactment. Those who already had health insurance also experience enhanced coverage since the covers must include a core set of health care services. Further to that, families are now better insulated against calamitous expenses associated with health care. Due to these coverage provisions, it has become evident that the health insurance sector is a viable source of insurance coverage for American citizens. But there is still a need to fully understand the medical insurance dynamics to encompass individuals with preexisting conditions and recalibrate premiums accordingly.

There are vital strides that must be made all around for success to overcome the disparities that currently exist in the inequitable access to health care. First, there must be cooperation as opposed to obstruction between the different political divides. Secondly, unique benefits accorded to interested parties such as the pharmaceutical industry, whose focus is on profits rather than the citizens’ well-being, must be done away with. Pragmatism is vital in both lawmaking and execution.

Healthcare disruption “isn’t necessarily about startups toppling industry giants but rather a theory about how to make products and services so much more affordable and accessible that they can transform industries and improve the lives of a widening population.”

You may want to skim this assignment before choosing a topic. In this assignment, you will be looking at innovations and disruptors that make healthcare more affordable and accessible to improve the lives of people facing specific health issues. In healthcare, an effective disruptor will improve the quality of care, lower cost or increase access of healthcare to patients – in an effective and scalable manner.

For purposes of this assignment, the disruptor may be at any stage from a concept or something that is already introduced to the industry.

You may reference information from class or guest lecture, but you will need outside sources. Be sure to cite your sources for information that you include below, and put any direct quotes in quotation marks (linked to footnotes). See the document on Citations in the Assignments folder. Some of the responses may not be based on research but rather your thoughtful consideration of what you’ve learned so far through class lectures and other course materials.

Your responses can be succinct; bullet points are encouraged and are more appropriate than an essay format. Present your findings in the spaces below. Then save your document and upload it to the Canvas course website when it’s completed.

1. Choose a patient population of interest. What are 2-3 challenges faced by patients in this population? Where possible, please give data specific to the patient population you chose.

1. According to the American Heart Association estimates approximately 7.3 million Americans living with cardiovascular disease are uninsured (American Heart Association, n.d.a). Many insurance plans exclude pre-existing conditions, which can limit patients with heart disease of insurance options. Without optimal coverage, many patients delay treatment or medical care, which can lead to more detrimental outcomes (American Heart Association, n.d.b).
2. Medication adherence is another barrier that patients with cardiovascular disease face. The primarily issue lies with the cost of medication and instruments required to help regulate the disease. According to the American Heart Association, approximately 1 out of 4 heart patients do not take their medication as prescribed to them. While there are many barriers to why a patient may not be able to adhere to their treatment like the fear of side effects, the cost of medication and medical instruments is the most common (American Heart Association, n.d.c).
3. Lastly, another challenge that cardiovascular patients face is the education and support to change risk behaviors for heart disease. Behaviors such as unhealthy diets, low physical activity, and smoking, are risk factors for developing heart disease. However, if these behaviors continue during heart disease treatment, it can often be difficult to overcome the disease (Mcclellan, Brown, Califf & Warner, 2019). Addressing the issue of care improvement in patient lives is as important to maintaining medical care.

2. Choose 3 recent innovations or disruptors that have the potential to impact at least one of the challenges you cited above. For each, please give (a) a description; (b) the type of innovation/disruptor it is and (c) the potential impact it may have on the patient population you chose.

The type of innovation/disruptor will likely fall in into the categories we discussed in class – care delivery disruptor, technology/big data enabler; personalized care enhancer, cost/access facilitator, legislative driver.

1. Medication Delivery Services

(a) Popular pharmacies, like Walgreens and CVS, have implemented medication delivery services where prescriptions can be delivered directly to a patient’s residence. In addition, companies like PillPack are a fully online prescription delivery service. However, PillPack creates individual packets of medications, labeled with the medication name, dosage, and frequency (PillPack, n.d.).

(b) Walgreens, CVS, and PillPack are acting as a cost/access facilitator. Patients with cardiovascular disease may have limited mobility and time to reach pharmacies to receive their medications (American Heart Association, n.d.c). These pill delivery services provide accessibility to those patients and increases medication adherence.

(c) The potential impact that the cardiovascular disease population may have is an increase in medication adherence. By increasing the ease of receiving medication and eliminating the inconvenience of a daily, or weekly, prescription, it reduces the risk of patients defaulting their treatment. Additionally, older patients may be at risk of not taking their medications due to confusion about prescription dosage and names, as well as how frequently to take the prescription (Pérez-Jover, Mira, Carratala-Munuera, Gil-Guillen, Basora, López-Pineda & Orozco-Beltrán, 2018). Companies, like PillPack, that work to package the medication in clear, efficient way for consumers, increases the chance of older patients adhering to their treatment.

(a) Smart Technology, such as smart pill bottles, smartphone applications, and wearable sensors, are focused on improving medication adherence, especially in older adults with cardiovascular disease. Medical smart pill bottles focus on the weight of the bottle to ensure that the patient has taken their medication that day or focuses on the action of opening and closing the bottle (Aldeer, Javanmard & Martin, 2018). Smartphone applications are also common in alerting the patient to take their daily medications. Applications, such as Medisafe Medication Management, can also provide additional information about their prescriptions and any interacting drugs (Aldeer, Javanmard & Martin, 2018). Lastly, wearable sensors are also becoming popular among chronic disease patients. Electrocardiogram patches are wearable sensors that track the patient’s heart rate and help monitor the patient (BioSpace, 2019).

(b) Smart technology companies are acting as technology/big data enhancers. They also act as care delivery disruptors when these programs track data for healthcare professionals to provide better care with more information about their patient.

(c) The potential impact of these technology devices is an increase in medication adherence and a better quality of care for patients. Reminder applications and smart pill packaging can help those who may forget to take their daily medications and adhere to their treatment regimens. Additionally, devices like the electrocardiogram patch can help track a patient’s heart rate and provide more information to healthcare provider about how to best treat their patient.

(a) There are a variety of medication assistance programs available to cardiovascular disease patients to help with the cost of medication. These programs are often based on income and age. The PillPack program allows individuals to only pay their copay for the medication, lowering the cost for some individuals (PillPack, n.d.). Medicare covered individuals are able to be covered for their prescriptions and tools, such as the Medicare Prescription Drug Plan Finder, aid patients in finding the best costs for their treatments (American Heart Association, n.d.d). However, the Affordable Care Act mandates that health care plans cover at least one drug per category. This expands the coverage of medication and becomes more affordable for patients to receive their prescriptions (HealthCare.Gov, n.d.).

(b) Programs aiming to reduce the cost of prescription drugs are cost/access facilitators. The Affordable Care Act works as a cost/access facilitator and a legislative driver. Medicare and the Affordable Care Act are in place to provide more coverage of prescription drugs.

(c) The potential impact that the Medicare and the Affordable Care Act have on medication coverage can help improve medication adherence by allowing prescriptions to be more accessible to patients. By lowering the cost of prescriptions, it reduces the risk of people halting their treatment due to a lack of prescription availability.

For the remainder of the assignment, please focus your answers on ONE of the innovations or disruptors you chose in Q2

Chosen Innovation: Technology to Aid Adherence

I specifically chose technology to aid adherence as the innovation to focus on because it is a system that is still continuing to grow. New advances in technology are always coming out and trying to improve healthcare. Technology specifically aiming to improve medication adherence is especially interesting to me because it focuses on the behavior of the patient. Whether it’s the inability to keep track of pills or confusion about dosages, technology helps make daily treatments easier and individuals feel more independent.

4. (a) Articulate a goal for the innovation/disruptor that includes the challenge you initially identified. The goal should be an expectation of what should happen as a result of the innovation/disruptor being implemented.

(b) Then, identify a SMART objective that the innovation/disruptor may achieve. (SMART objectives are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound.)

(a) Implementing technology, including medical devices, smart pill bottles, and smartphone applications, will help encourage medication adherence in cardiovascular disease patients and lower the number of deaths due to medication non-compliance.

(b) By the end of December 2020, the mortality rate of cardiovascular disease patients who do not adhere to heart disease treatment will decrease by 5% with the use of technology innovations, including electrocardiogram patches, smart pill bottles, and smartphone reminder applications.

• A stakeholder that will be greatly affected by the implementation of technology innovations are medical physicians, specifically cardiologists. Cardiologists are medical professionals who diagnose and treat illnesses and diseases to the heart and blood vessels (American College of Cardiology, n.d.).
• Certain devices, such as the electrocardiogram patch, can be useful to physicians to help track a patient’s heart rate and detect irregular heart rhythms (Lobodzinski, 2013). Utilizing the data collected from these electrocardiogram patches can help track a patient’s progress throughout their cardiovascular disease treatment. Additionally, smart pill bottles and smartphone medication adherence applications are also capable of referring data to a physician as well. For example, the Medisafe Medication Management application is able to collect data from the patient and can be sent to their doctor as useful information about their treatment plan. Cardiologists can also use this application to help support patients that have multiple prescriptions with various dosages (Medisafe, n.d.).
• A behavior change that cardiologists may need to implement is encouraging patients to use the technology that will benefit both the individual and the physician monitoring them. Receiving a direct recommendation for a technology innovation, like the Medisafe application, from their cardiologist becomes much more credible to the patient. Another behavior change will be to understand and utilize the data from these devices to help adjust and regulate medications for the patients.

Using technology innovations to improve medication adherence increases the quality of patient care, and therefore, increases the total value. Utilizing these technological advances, like smartphone applications and smart pill bottles, are either free of cost or largely inexpensive. If the patients are able to improve adhering to their medication and physicians implement the information from technological devices to help make more confident decisions, it outweighs the cost of implementing these technology innovations into healthcare and increases the overall value.

According to the World Health Organization, health policy refers to decisions, plans, and actions that are undertaken to achieve specific health care goals within a society. It is anticipated that the disruptor/innovation’s effectiveness will surpass everyone’s expectations, and the government wants to expedite the change that the innovation/disruptor will bring.

A particular policy lever that would be pulled to help expedite the change that technology innovations can facilitate would be to focus on the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service’s policy on Interoperability of Electronic Health Information. Specially, one rule, proposed in conjunction with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, focuses on supporting electronic health information being shared between patients and medical providers. The purpose of this policy to help encourage easy access for patients to their health information, but also for the use of this data to help reduce unnecessary procedures and tests (U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, 2019). This particular policy can be pulled to help bring technology innovations, like smartphone applications, electrocardiogram patches, and smart pills, into regular health care. It should also be demonstrated that being able to track a patient’s prescription taking habits and recording their heart rate will aid a cardiologist to better treat their patient in addition to the patient adhering to their medication. Additionally, making the process of accessing the electronic health information easier may also bring more patients to use the programs.

Another policy to use as a lever can be the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act of 2009 (HITECH Act). The purpose of the policy is to help expand electronic health information to be shared between doctors and hospitals. It also aims to reduce costs of healthcare by sharing data with patients (Compliancy Group, 2019). Using this policy as a lever will encourage medical professionals to participate in incorporating more technology into their practices. The HITECH act also provides monetary incentives to those who participate in utilizing electronic health records, which can also encourage medical professionals to use medical devices as well (Compliancy Group, 2019). By encouraging medical professionals and hospitals to use electronic information sharing as part of their health care, it becomes a much more common tool among their patients and something that can be familiarized among populations that may not be technologically advanced. By having the support of the medical professionals and hospitals wanting to implement more electronic health information sharing, it will bring more credibility to the patients about how technology can be beneficial.

There are individuals who believe that technology is a negative addition to society, whether their reasons are due to religious beliefs or due to technology’s currently large impact. Patients who prefer to limit their interaction with technology may opt out of using devices and applications that aid them in medication adherence.

Another special group that would likely oppose the use of technology to help medication adherence are people who are very conscious about their privacy. This particular group of people may not want to participate on a smartphone application that may risk sharing information about their personal well-being.