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Health Policy Brief

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Health Policy Brief

Statement of the Issue: Becoming sick without health insurance can be physically and financially devastating. The working class people and those who have been recently terminated from their employment unfortunately cannot buy health insurance due to its expensive nature. Self-employed workers and small business owners also lack the resources to buy this provision. In order to help the 41 million uninsured Americans, Congress passed the Health Care Reform Bill called the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA).

Supporting Data and Information The issue of health care reform is not a novelty in the United States. One of the earliest health care reform proposals at the federal level was the 1854 Bill for the Benefit of the Indigent Insane, proposed by Dorothea Dix but was eventually vetoed by president Franklin Pierce. The bill was intended to establish asylums for the insane, blind, deaf, and dumb through land grants given by the government to the individual states. In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson created Medicare and Medicaid, insurance programs that provided health insurance to people aged 65 and over and that partially funded a program for those with low income respectively. In 2010, President Barack Obama enacted the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Through the PPACA, the government will be able to provide a system of mandated health insurance over four years and eliminate “some of the worst practices of insurance companies” such as pre-condition screening and policy rescinds when illness or death seems imminent. Other provisions that will be implemented through the PPACA include extending Medicare eligibility to individuals and families with incomes up to 133% of the poverty level, requiring all plans offering dependent coverage to allow unmarried individuals up to age 26 to remain on parents’ insurance,

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