Allison Hoffman Archives | Bill of Health
Category: Allison Hoffman
Grading the ACA as Equal Protection Statute
May 20, 2015 May 20, 2015 mlawrence	Leave a comment
The Affordable Care Act is sprawling. Some of its myriad provisions may (or may not!) reduce healthcare costs. Think of accountable care organizations, the hospital readmission reduction program, or even the preventive services mandate. And so, the Act’s success is often evaluated by asking whether it has helped reduce healthcare costs. (See, e.g., David Cutler here.)
Other of the ACA’s provisions are intended to promote financial security in the face of illness. The Act’s most litigated provisions, requiring that people buy insurance, expanding Medicaid, and creating exchanges, can be understood primarily in this light. And so, the Act’s success is also often evaluated by asking whether it has truly promoted financial security. (See today’s New York Times piece from Margoret Sangor-Katz on the subject of underinsurance post-ACA, or Aaron E. Carroll’s take from December.)
A third way of understanding the ACA’s reforms–and evaluating its success or failure–too often gets left out (as it was by the NY Times here): The ACA can perhaps most coherently be thought of as an equal protection statute.