Affordable Care Act: Nursing and Social Media

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In the original blog entry, Darlene Grey claimed that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) limited her insurance opportunities by dramatically raising prices for insurance and healthcare (Grey, 2014). For example, the current price of an insurance plan is $300 monthly, and all other options are unavailable due to the implementation of the ACA (Grey, 2014). The majority of the commenters supported Greys concerns about the reliability of the ACA. It claimed that politicians developed the act without any profound knowledge of the medical sphere (Grey, 2014). Nonetheless, the comment by Garcia highlighted some benefits of the ACA, including providing jobs for nurses and increasing Medicaid coverage while repealing it would trigger even more problems (Grey, 2014).

I would agree that the implementation of the ACA was not purely negative. For example, the ACA minimized disparities since this act expanded the Medicaid coverage and attempted to increase the quality of the provided services (Obama, 2016). At the same time, it was viewed as an appropriate financial tool to control the expenditure in the healthcare sphere (Obama, 2016). Thus, apart from these advantages, along with offering jobs for medical professionals, the ACA reform was not fully positive.

For example, the number of uninsured Americans is still high, and today, it accounts for $11 million (Mayo, Griffin, Pribonic, & Rollins, 2016). In turn, the act was ineffective since spending on healthcare continued to increase while the entire medical system of the United States of America seems to be collapsing rather soon.

I truly believe that adjustments have to be made, as, otherwise, it may hurt the wellbeing and health of the American nation. Thus, some politicians were considering repealing the ACA act entirely. In this case, they view the ACA and Medicare as major threats to the financial stability of the country (Conover, 2016). Its alternative, the American Health Care Act, fills some of their gaps by reducing prices for the insurance coverage and controlling spending within the healthcare segment (Conover, 2016).

Nonetheless, it will impose certain limitations on available procedures covered by insurance. Overall, I believe that the proposed adjustments are reasonable since apart from its beneficial intentions, the ACA still has some negative effects on the quality of healthcare and living of the citizens of the country. I think that it will be reasonable to write a letter to a Congressman within the appropriate district and suggest the modifications that have to be made to the ACA and the American Health Care Act, as they do not address all of the current problems entirely.

Based on this experience with the post, social media can be viewed as an appropriate instrument to interact with the patients and improve the quality of the provided support. For example, potential suggestions concerning the outcomes of the implementation of the ACA can be made, and one of the ways to provide this valuable feedback is by commenting on posts. Simultaneously, nurses can interact with patients online in public groups of different healthcare organizations by making posts, offering feedback, and communicating privately (Barry & Hardiker, 2012).

A combination of these factors will help patients become more aware of the current healthcare possibilities and change their attitude towards medical assistance in a positive way. Thus, despite its focus on patient-centered care, the major ethical concerns may pertain to privacy, confidentiality, and trust due to the potential leakage of information, while inaccurate facts may be misleading and trigger conflicts (Denecke et al., 2015; Milstead, 2013).

References

Barry, J., & Hardiker, N. (2012). Advancing nursing practice through social media: A global perspective. The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 17(3), 1-6.

Conover, Chris. (2016). How the 2017 projects alternative to Obamacare will repeal and replace Obamacare. Forbes. 

Denecke, K., Bamidis, P., Bond, C., Gabarron, E., Housef, M., Lau, A., & Hansen, M. (2015). Ethical issues of social media usage in healthcare. Yearbook of Medical Informatics, 10(1), 137-147.

Grey, D. (2014). Affordable Care Act  Have we overlooked repercussions?.

Mayo, R., Griffin, S., Pribonic, A., & Rollins, M. (2016). The reality of the Affordable Care Act implementation among the chronically uninsured. Diversity and Equality in Health and Care, 13(3), 251-256.

Milstead, J. (2013). Health policy and politics: A nurses guide. Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.

Obama, B. (2016). United States healthcare reform: Progress to date and next steps. JAMA, 316(5), 525-532.

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