Get your quality homework help now and stand out.Our professional writers are committed to excellence. We have trained the best scholars in different fields of study.Contact us now at http://www.essaysexperts.net/ and place your order at affordable price done within set deadlines.We always have someone online ready to answer all your queries and take your requests.

1. The 2010 Health Care Reform Bill Essay
In March 2010, President Obama signed into law the 2010 Health Care
Reform Bill. This reform is considered as one of the most expansive
social legislation enacted in decades in the United States mainly
because it is aimed at extending insurance coverage to approximately
30 million additional Americans. The process of developing and passing
this bill was very rigorous with many emerging issues being linked to
the entire decision-making process.This paper seeks to analyze the
decision-making process and issues that were linked with this process
during the development and passing of the Health Care Reform Bill.
The main sources of public health policies include the local, state, or
federal legislation, regulations, as well as court rulings that are passed
and given authority to govern the provision of health care services.
Apart from public policies, key players in the private sector, such as
hospitals and accrediting bodies can also come up with institutional or
business policies that affect health care. The policy making process is
made up of many different phases including the formulation,
implementation, and evaluation phases. Each of the decision-making
processes and issues that fall between the stages of developing and
passing the health care reform bill are categorized within the
formulation phase of a public policy.The public policy decision-making
process is strongly connected to the political process in a country.
The 2010 Health Care Reforms Bill decision making process began in
2008 when Senate Finance Committee held numerous hearings with
regard to the healthcare reforms between May 2008 and November
2008. After all the hearings had been made, the Senate Finance
Committee released a comprehensive white paper with policy options
based on the hearings that had been conducted and called for
subsequent healthcare reforms to be made. In November 2008, there
was an agreement between the Senate Finance Committee and the
Senate Health, Education, Labor, and pensions committee (HELP) in

2. November 2008 to commit to pass the comprehensive bill for health
care reform. During the 2008 presidential election campaigns,
President Obama had also made the health care reform agenda one of
his key promises for the electorate. This is why upon clinching the
presidency seat, the Obama administration delegated the Congress to
draft a detailed health care reform proposal. There were further
developments on this health care reform legislation after the Senate
Finance Committee collectively engaged health policy and industry
experts in discussing the formulation of the bill.
In terms of the constitution, Congress is mandated with all the
legislative powers and rights needed in enacting the necessary and
proper federal laws. The Senate and the House of Representatives are
chambers of the Congress that are given the Congressional
responsibilities of making decisions. The 2010 Health Care Reforms Bill
was therefore introduced at the same time to both the House of
Representatives and the Senate through a Representative and a
Senator respectively for reading. After the reading of the bill in the
House and the Senate, it was further assigned to Health Committees by
both the House’s speaker and the Senate’s Majority Leader for scrutiny
within their respective chambers.
The House of Representatives assigned three committees to examine
the Affordable Health Choices Act, while two committees within the
Senate were assigned the task of amending the bill. Each of the three
versions of the bill that the House of Representatives committees
produced after the amendment was voted out of the chamber’s
committees and so were the two versions of the Senate Finance
Committee and the Senate HELP committee. The initial drafts of the
legislation and its amendments were rejected because the reform
proposal was aimed at creating a new health insurance program that
would be run by the government and would be known as “public
option”. This program would give American citizens an alternative to
private healthcare insurance policies. Even though, the reform proposal

3. was heavily criticized for reiterating socialism policies that were
contrary to the American ideologies, the Republicans were more
concerned about the increased tax burden that Americans would face
and the fact that the reform would also cover illegal immigrants.
Both chambers of the Congress faced a dilemma with regard to the
decision-making process concerning theethical issues in the health
sector, like abortion. In order to agree on this contentious issue, the
policy makers were forced to acknowledge the powers of individual
states when passing legislation on this issue. Even though the bill
mandated individual states to choose whether to ban abortion
coverage in the exchange plans offered, both chamber committees
were in agreement that all individuals purchasing plans through the
exchanges would be compelled to pay for abortion coverage using their
own funds (Silverleib, 2009).
On 30th October, there was a second attempt to amend and pass the
legislation and the House Speaker re-introduced the Affordable Health
Care for America Act into the chamber. Subsequently, the Act, which
contained a combination of the proposed amendments that had been
previously made in the three House committees, was narrowly passed
in November 9, 2009.On the other hand, the Senate introduced and
passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which was a
combination of the two versions of health care reform that had been
developed and rejected in the past by its two committees. After this,
the chambers exchanged the passed bills for further scrutiny with the
main aim of passing an identical bill or agreeing to another version of
one branch. President Obama then unleashed his own version of the
health care proposal and this was heavily drawn from the bill proposed
by the Senate.
The House of Representatives agreed on the version of the bill tabled
by the Senate but Congress agreed on a set of amendments to the act.
The House of Representatives, which was mainly composed of
Democrats passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care, Act and

4. the package of reconciliation fixes despite lackluster support from the
Republicans. Having been approved by the two Congressional
chambers,the bill combined with additional package of fixes for it that
was now named the House Reconciliation Act of 2010. Its final version
the final version was forwarded to the president’s desk for signing into
law and President Obama signed it on March 23, 2010. This particular
health care reform is expected to reduce the increasing costs of health
care services as well as extend insurance coverage to most Americans
(Council of Economic Advisers, 2009).
The decision-making process of the development and subsequent
passing of the 2010 reform bill was not devoid of political and
ideological differences. The differences were mainly between
Democrats who were vouching for the reforms, and the Republicans
and Tea Party supporters that strongly opposed the bill. On their part,
the democrats believed that it was the government’s responsibility to
improve the lives of the American people by offering insurance
coverage to those who could not afford it. However, the Republican
perceived the bill as an interference with the freedom of the people
because it compels most individuals to carry health insurance or pay
penalty for noncompliance.
The republicans further opposed the growing involvement of the
government in subsidizing the cost of health care for every American
citizen because it perceived this as being an aspect of socialism, an
ideology that Americans are strongly opposed to. Private insurance
providers on their part were against the bill, because it directly affected
them and they feared it could destroy the existent system for private
insurers.The Democrats and other supporters of the bill were convinced
that, if passed, it would reduce the health care costs. There were also
those that opposed the bill on the premise that financing the expanded
health insurance coverage could result in a rise in the federal deficit
level and general taxation with the aim of catering for the increased
health care costs (Huffington Post, 2010). It is clear from this analysis

5. that the development and passing of the health care reform bill was not
only a tedious task but also entailed making amendments and critical
decisions.
Having sleepless nights because of your assignment? Visit us
at PremiumEssays.net and get the best of our writers to do your
assignment for you.

6. References
Council of Economic Advisers. (2009, June). The economic case for
health care reform. The Executive Office of the President of the United
States. Retrieved from:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/assets/documents/CEA_Health_Care_Rep
ort.pdf
Huffington Post. (2010, Mar. 18). Senate votes to debate health care
reform bill. Retrieved from:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/21/senate-votes-to-debate-
he_n_366598.html
Silverleib, A. (2009, Dec. 24). Senate approves health care reform
bill. CNN. Retrieved from:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/12/24/health.care/
- See more at: http://www.premiumessays.net/articles/the-2010-
health-care-reform-bill-essay/#sthash.lw5K311c.dpuf