Argumentative essay writing requires critical thinking, ability to do research, analyze information and turn raw data into concrete, well-founded evidence in support of one’s point of view. Therefore, it is often used both to evaluate the student’s skills in this area and to train them – which means that learning how to deal with this type of writing is instrumental in improving one’s grades. That’s why, having a look at our argumentative sample essay on Obama health care plans will be useful for you to develop those skills.
Affordable Care Act, also known as Obama Health care reform or simply Obamacare, is certainly the most notable accomplishment of Obama’s administration; however, it is still very unclear if this accomplishment is to be evaluated positively or negatively. At the very least, analysts, economists and healthcare specialists are very far from being unanimous in their position on its principles and effects (both declared and real).
The main purposes of healthcare reform plan supported by the Democrats are as follows: to make healthcare affordable to a greater number of Americans, to decrease its cost, to eliminate supposedly unfair practices often employed by insurance companies and, in the long run, to improve the overall quality of health care in the United States. After all, one of the main selling points of the reform is that the USA show considerably lower results in various evaluations of health indices than many other developed countries.
To a certain degree, these goals have been reached (or at least, so official statistics shows). The number of people having this or that health insurance coverage is increased by some 15 million people, insurance companies can no longer legally use some practices that either made it impossible for some people to get coverage or left them without support at the most crucial moments (e.g., those with serious injuries and conditions like cancer). Prescription drugs became more available, and healthcare in general became more centered on prevention than treatment.
However, the situation is not as pleasant as Obama and his supporters would have us believe. Six years after the introduction of ACA, those who were against it from the very beginning mostly remain unconvinced, while more and more people from the general populace become disillusioned by the results. Many of those signing up for ACA get poorer coverage, fewer doctors and higher premiums, and all of these tendencies seem to be on a steady rise. The problem is, in actuality Obamacare does nothing to curb the prices of healthcare insurance but promotes overuse of healthcare, thus creating the shortage of doctors, longer waiting times and poorer service overall.
In addition to that, the law provides excellent conditions for fraud and wasteful spending – and statistics show that both are steadily on the rise as well. In other words, everything that the opponents of Obamacare predicted is coming true, which hardly improves the law’s image in the eyes of those who are supposed to pay for it.
When all is said and done, your attitude towards the ACA is determined by whether you believe its benefits outweigh its shortcomings: whether broader coverage is more important than efficiency and high quality.
References
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- Pollack, H. (2012). America’s Health Policy Trap. Public Administration Review, 72(3), 465-468.
- Rivlin, A. (2013). Health Reform: What Next?. Public Administration Review, 73(s1), S15-S20.
- Rushefsky, M. (2010). Really Reforming Health Care in the United States. Public Administration Review, 70(4), 645-647.
- Thompson, F. (2013). Health Reform, Polarization, and Public Administration. Public Administration Review, 73(s1), S3-S12.
- Turner, L. (2013). The Effect of Medicaid Policies on the Diagnosis and Treatment of Children’s Mental Health Problems in Primary Care. Health Econ., 24(2), 142-157.
- Zahradnik, A. (2010). Bureau Men and Settlement Women Developing Modern Health-Care Policy. Administrative Theory & Praxis, 32(2), 214-219.