Affordable Care Act and Nurses’ Role in It

Introduction

The features that all the health plans were required to meet as of January 2017 include bringing down health care premiums, the rights and protections of the consumers and providing free preventive care. Due to the rising health insurance costs, one of the common features of the premiums was that the ACA required a subsidy. However, in all the features to be met as of January 2017, the grandfather plan is exceptional in the preventive care. The grandfathered plan was not supposed to offer free preventive care as was supposed to be done by the other premiums.

Nurses occupy the largest portion of the American health care workers, likewise to the roles that they play in the healthcare facilities. Nurses offer a wide range of services including connecting people with resources that may assist them to get health care and remain healthy. The current plans for the Affordable Care Act include the selection of plans which are accessible through the internet (Salmond & Echevarria, 2017). Most of the clients or the patients may not be in a position to carry out the selection and the comparison of the plans that fits them well. Consumers can make, through assistance, a quality comparison of plans and make decisions if their loved ones qualify for a low-cost plan or a no-cost plan. The new plans are as a result of the Affordable Care Act in America. Therefore, the roles of the nurses may be changing at an alarming rate as they have to act as guides to the consumers who may want to select and make a subscription to their preferred plans.

Additionally, the cost and quality concerns together with the ever-changing disease type demographics have compelled most of the health care agencies to come up with the greatest urgency for the need for change in the sector. The health care plans in the United States are on the rise, which has been attributed to many factors including the withdrawal of the insurance firms. Most of the insurance firms in the United States have withdrawn due to the high expenses incurred that doubles their profits (Marte, 2016). The Affordable Care Act, on the other hand, has included the programs such as greater coordination of care, which are programs led by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services. The greater coordination of care is a program aimed at improving quality of care, improve outcomes, as well as reduce spending.

With all the programs under the schedules of the Affordable Care Act, the personnel who will mostly contribute to its success is the nurse. Nurses in the Affordable Care Act programs are positioned to lead and contribute to transformative changes taking place in the healthcare sector. Thus, nurses have got a new role as a result of the Affordable Care Act programs. Apart from nursing services, the nurses have got a new transformative role which is supported by the Affordable Care Act. There are three plans in the program which are silver, bronze, and the higher levels costs. The plans in the lower premiums tend to be expensive and cover a smaller proportion of the total health cost (Sanger-Katz, 2017). On the other hand, the higher level premiums cost more and also covers a bigger share. Therefore, based on the plans, the people who will be negatively impacted are the middle-income earners who will opt for the levels that are cheap.