Affordable Care Act, Also Known as the Patient Protection Act - Essay Example

The paper "Affordable Care Act, Also Known as the Patient Protection Act" is an excellent example of an essay on health sciences and medicine. Affordable Care Act, also known as the Patient Protection act, is one of the remarkable changes in the American health care system. The main objectives of the act include reduction of health care costs, increasing the number of insured persons as well as improving the quality of the health care systems. The government introduced several ways to ensure these objectives are met. Each patient is highly considered regardless of a patient’s social status, race, gender or age. With some reforms on the act, it has made it affordable for the majority of Americans to access medical care. However, there has been some negative feedback about the act.

Affordable Care Act has impacted several sectors of the economy both positively and negatively. These impacts vary with each sector. I will try to focus on how it has affected the companies in the United States, specifically the human resource (HR) departments. The majority of employers have come out against the act claiming that the act has been a blow to them, and it is really not beneficial to them or to their workers. Claims differ with the size of the company. Middle-sized companies are exempted from paying the increased costs of health insurance coves but these costs remain relatively high for big companies (Tate, 2012).

The reason for this difference comes in when companies have casual employment arrangements with their workers. Employers claim that it is extremely expensive to pay for their full-time employees at once. The government gave deadlines for the companies to fulfill certain requirements, or else face fines for each full-time employee that is not covered in the health care scheme (Smith, 2013). This has left the companies at crossroads with both their employees and the government on the path to cheap health care.

As most of the midsized companies are having a full-time workforce of less than 50, they are exempted from paying for their workforce the extravagant prices. Big companies with over 50 full-time employees are against the act saying that it is costly in their expenses. In Wal-Mart, for example, the number of full-time employees is significantly low as a means of cutting down on the high expenses that could be incurred with paying for their health insurance plus benefits. In such contexts, the human resource department comes in handy. Typically, payment of wages and determination of promotion is done by the human resource. The HR departments now have an added task to determine the extra expenses a company will incur due to the health care act (Andrew & Sara, 2014, p. 132).

With respect to terms of the Affordable Care Act, the human resource department usually opts to reduce the permanent workforce as a means of minimizing the amount that is to be paid at the beginning of next year and negotiate with the workers on a sweet deal that will not result in demonstrations. Through this approach, the company will not lose much money in paying for the health insurance of over 50 permanent workers. In the future, the human resource department is likely to hire workers up to an extent of about 49 people. Since there are directors and managers in this bracket, it is unlikely that people would grow much financially as a result of the limiting rise in expenses.

With respect to employees, the Affordable Care Act might offer splendid opportunities to many individuals. However, this act has some black holes that make situations even worse than their original conditions (Andrew & Sara, 2014, p. 131). Reduction in the full-time workforce by HR is one of the black holes whereby anyone who was previously assured of job security could become retrenched. Fortunately, people have the power to exercise their choice of any health care insurance, and the right to question their employers is something to be applauded.