The goals of the Affordable Care Act.

    Respond to two colleagues in one of the following ways: Respectfully state and provide evidence as to why you do not support their perspective. Support a perspective that aligns with yours by providing additional evidence and/or analysis. 1AU- Describe the goals of the Affordable Care Act. According to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, the Affordable Care Act is "the comprehensive health care reform law enacted in March 2010." This law has 3 primary goals that it defines. The goals are to "Make affordable health insurance available to more people...expand the Medicaid program to cover all adults with income below 138% of the FPL... and support innovative medical care delivery methods designed to lower the costs of health care generally (USDHHS)." The main objective of these goals is to improve healthcare throughout the U.S. Is access to healthcare a right or a privilege? The question of whether access to healthcare is a right or a privilege is complex, can be confusing, and varies according to others. I personally feel that access to healthcare is a privilege despite how hard some may try to define it as a right. For example, someone may go to an emergency room to receive care and get that care, but then be charged thousands of dollars for this care. If they are unable to pay for this care, their financial state may suffer as a result. Even so, some places will not allow patients to be seen if they have unpaid balances. This shows that there is a good intent for healthcare to be a right, however, it is a privilege. How does the historical context of healthcare policy intersect with social justice and the mission of social work?