Date of Award

1-1-2012

Document Type

Masters Thesis

Degree Name

M.A.

Organizational Unit

College of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences

First Advisor

Yavuz Yasar, Ph.D.

Second Advisor

Katherine Freeman

Third Advisor

Chiara Piovani

Fourth Advisor

Haider Kahn

Keywords

Affordable Care Act, ACA, United States, Healthcare, Health insurance

Abstract

In 2010, the 111th Congress passed the first national health care reform in the United States, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). This landmark legislation is intended to "fix" a health care system renowned for decreasing access and escalating costs. This paper examines one of the principal reforms in the ACA, the state health insurance exchanges. The author finds theoretical and empirical evidence to support the exchanges' potential (in conjunction with other relevant ACA reforms) to increase access, decrease insurers' excess profits and shift health care costs away from those least able to afford them. The exchanges fall short of becoming a panacea, however, as they leave a large number of people uninsured, even in optimal scenarios. Thus, the exchanges are essentially another band-aid for the system which covers additional people, yet does not cure the U.S. health care system's ills.

Publication Statement

Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.

Rights Holder

Luisa Sanchez de Tagle

Provenance

Received from ProQuest

File Format

application/pdf

Language

en

File Size

126 p.

Discipline

Economics, Health care management

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