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The Affordable Care Act - Applying Historical Perspectives to a Current Social Issue
The University of Washington, School of Social Work

The Affordable Care Act - Applying Historical Perspectives to a Current Social Issue
Universal health care for Americans has long been a highly contested hot button issue in the United States. It is no secret that Americans pay much more for medical services than other comparable countries, however these higher price tags do not necessarily translate to better care (Keller, 2013). For example, the average price of the allergy nose spray Nasonex is $108 in the United States, compared to $21 in Spain. In many developed countries, a basic colonoscopy costs well under $1,000, but in the United States a bill for this procedure would likely be closer to the $7,000 to $9,000 range (Rosenthal, 2013). In the midst of the debate, and while Republicans and Democrats alike may claim that they want the best health care available for all American people, in the media more often than not this argument comes down to dollars and cents. However, it is of course too simplistic to say that only the power of money and no other forces are at play here. In this paper I will present the case of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), more commonly referred to as Obamacare, as it relates to a number of different political and economic ideologies presented in readings and in lecture.
The goal of the ACA is to increase the quality and affordability of medical care and health insurance options in the United States through a dramatic overhaul of the current system. The Affordable Care Act was signed into law by President Obama on March 23, 2010, however the law and its many parts have been debated by both major U.S. political parties and the debate continued to rage even after the Supreme Court’s 2012 ruling that most provisions in the ACA were constitutional (The

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