¶ … new Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), as amended by the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act (Reconciliation Act) will create a huge future demand for health care as millions of people who have been without health insurance will now have it, either through reduced rate plans and programs or public options. As the law reads there will be a sort of sliding scale system based on the poverty level and those who qualify based on income will be offered reduced premiums for coverage and those who do not but still choose not to get health insurance will be penalized with a fee. Currently there are an estimated 32 million people in the U.S. who have no health insurance coverage. Under the new law (PPACA) many of those individuals will have insurance coverage and therefore seek care more frequently. According to one source hospitals will be seeking to increase staffing of doctors by twice or more (Zolkos, 2011). This trend will significantly change the face of health care, in part because of increased demand for doctors and other care providers but also the support staff to aide that many more providers. Some of these doctors may come from practices which have previously been independent,...
The kind of care they will likely be seeking is primary care provision, health and wellness monitoring and also preventative care. This change will be extreme and may have to be addressed by not only more primary care
physicians but also advanced practice
nurses, such as nurse practitioners and physicians assistants, nurse midwives and even naturopathic physicians who currently have limited (if any) practice rights in most states. These new consumer demands will likely increase the demand for providers, outside of physicians and will also likely drive alterations in laws to expand the practice rights of alternative providers in many states (Carlson, 2010).
• How will consumerism promote competition? Explain.
It would not seem that much of a leap to assume that increased numbers of consumers and their associated consumerism for health care provision will promote competition, as providers both independent and employed seek to serve many more people than they do now, to reap the financial benefits. In…
