After reading president Obama’s JAMA article I was surprised to read that the percentage of uninsured people in the United States dropped significantly from 16.0% in 2010 to 9.1% in 2015. More than likely, this occurred because of the individual mandate laws that came with the Affordable Care Act. Even though, these laws charge people penalties if they don’t purchase health care, I believe that the laws themselves aren’t as intrusive as they may seem. For example, people who belong to Native American tribes or people whose religion may have conflicts with the healthcare process are excluded from having to purchase healthcare. All in all, one can see the large scale change of the ACA through the statistics presented in the JAMA article.
Currently, my knowledge of politics and of the healthcare system are fairly weak, but I believe that even though Donald Trump is seen as a negative public figure, I will not let that cloud my judgment of his health care polices. Health care in general is a very complex subject but one thing that I have learned about Donald Trump’s healthcare plan is that he states that he will repeal and replace the ACA. Now I’m not against innovation but it seems to me that Mr. Trump is underestimating the complexity of the Healthcare system. The process to get to the affordable care act itself took several decades. I think that scraping the ACA would probably not be the right move. Instead, building on the ACA and working towards a more efficient heal care system would, in my opinion, be more practical for it would not simply trash an act that may not be perfect.
One improvement that I believe should be made is the expansion of Medicaid in every state to assure that low-income Americans are receiving the financial assistance to live healthy lives. Different opinions on that specific idea may exist but in general, I would prefer to know that every state gives its residents the opportunity to receive federal assistance with their health care needs. Secondly, I think that it is prudent that the United State create a program or organization to meet the health care needs for both undocumented adults and their children. This hits home for me, for I grew up knowing many people who were undocumented and as a result did not have the funds or assistance needed to get the health services they needed. This, I know, is a very political issue, however we need to think of the needs of our fellow human beings here in the US. The politics surrounding the issue of illegal immigration should not makes us ignore the pain and suffering that some undocumented families may go through as a result of not having access to some form of health care asistance.