With President Obama and Governor Romney offering fundamentally different visions for the nation's health system, this fall's presidential election provides a stark choice for U.S. voters. To inform public discussion about health care in the election and beyond, this analysis draws from microsimulation analysis to contrast the potential impact of implementing the Affordable Care Act in full with Romney's proposals to repeal the law, eliminate many of the new requirements for insurance markets, and make changes in Medicaid and Medicare. The report focuses on the following: the number of Americans expected to gain health insurance; changes in the affordability of insurance; changes in consumer protections and consumer choice; help for small businesses; improvement in Medicare solvency; improvement in health care quality; and control of health spending growth. Findings of the analysis indicate that, in each area, implementation of the Affordable Care Act would likely outperform Romney's proposals.
Copyright:
Reproduced with permission of the copyright holder. Further use of the material is subject to CC BY license. (More information)