Essay on Project 3 Revision

Charlie Adams
English 1103
Dr. Matthew Carlson
December 4, 2012
America Benefits from the Affordable Care Act The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is a constitutionally sound law that will promote the welfare of citizens of the United States of America. Congress is authorized to pass the ACA as a tax under the General Welfare Clause. The ACA benefits many Americans who cannot afford health care and helps narrow the gap between economic classes in America. The ACA receives some opposition from people who are against higher taxes and people who believe a government-run public service cannot compete in efficiency and effectiveness with the private sector; however, there are reasonable explanations to oppose these concerns. The bottom line is, all citizens of the United States should have access to quality health care. The Constitution gives Congress the power to pass the ACA as a tax. As stated in Article I, section 8 of the General Welfare Clause, the federal government has the right “to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States.” This individual mandate is a tax. The mandate is an amendment to the Internal Revenue Code, and it is calculated based on a percentage of adjusted gross income or a fixed amount. In 2014, it will be collected on 1040 forms, just the same as other taxes (Balkin 2). As a tax, the ACA must clearly benefit the welfare of the nation as stipulated by the federal government (Balkin 2). The ACA will allow people who have been uninsured for at least six months to join a new federal or state insurance plan. Children with pre-existing conditions will be covered. Insurers will not be allowed to impose lifetime dollar limits on essential benefits, such as hospital services. All new health care plans will provide certain preventative services, such as mammograms and colonoscopies, without deductibles or co-payments. The roughly two and a half million young adults without private insurance will be allowed to stay on their parents’ plans until they turn twenty-six. By providing health insurance to so many Americans, the ACA will clearly provide for the welfare of the United States (“Impacts”). Without the Affordable Care Act, children and adults with pre-existing conditions or insufficient money to pay for quality health care will have only three options. They must go without needed health care, wait until an advanced illness forces them to go to high-cost hospital for treatment, or depend on hospital emergency rooms for their primary care. And what is worse, when these people have to rely on hospital emergency rooms for their primary care, the entire nation is responsible for paying those costs through insurance premiums or out-of-pocket expenses. The ACA will give these people options that they were never fortunate enough to have in the past. These options will improve quality of life and potentially save lives (Fields). The ACA recognizes the importance of preventative care. Investing more resources in disease prevention and health promotion will save the government money in the long run and improve quality of life by preventing diseases before they fully develop. The costs of regulating and preventing diseases, such as cancer, before they advance are less than the costs would be to treat these diseases after they have advanced. The ACA encourages people to go in earlier for preventative care instead of waiting until the last minute because cost is no longer an issue. This provides a simple and effective way of saving both the government and American citizens money while also improving health care for many citizens (Fields). Many people oppose the ACA because they are uncomfortable with the idea of higher taxes. The average person, however, will not see any significant rise in taxes. The top one percent of US citizens will be the only group seeing a substantial increase in taxation, giving

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