From Then Until Now: A Top-Down View Of The Affordable Care Act.

It has been nine years since the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), often informally referred to as Obamacare, was signed into law. The act brought about the most significant expansion of and change to U.S. health insurance coverage since the formation of Medicare in 1965. On January 20, 2017, President Donald Trump issued an executive order authorizing the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to “waive, defer, grant exemption from, or delay the implementation of any provision or requirement of the ACA that would impose a fiscal burden on any State or a cost, fee, tax, penalty, or regulatory burden on individuals, families, health care providers, health insurers, patients, recipients of health care services, purchasers of health insurance, or makers of medical devices, products or medications.”1 The main components of ACA were the expansion of Medicaid, changes in private (commercial) insurance coverage, the establishment of health exchanges, employer requirements for providing healthcare coverage, and the introduction of the individual mandate. Open in a separate window F. Randy Vogenberg