Is ACA effective in decreasing healthcare costs?

I enjoyed learning about the healthcare system in America and comparing our system to healthcare systems of different countries around the world through our presentations. In particular, it never struck me of how inefficient U.S. healthcare system was until I saw the statistics that was presented in Dr. Bella’s slides. I was particularly shocked to find out that our health care spending was more than 2 times the average spending of other countries.
 I never had a clear idea of the impact of the Affordable Care Act on our healthcare system but the Healthcare in the US presentation gave me a better understanding of the problems within the US healthcare system and the goals of the ACA. Despite ACA’s attempts to lower health care costs by providing more preventative services, increasing access to healthcare via insurance, I still question the effectiveness of ACA. The main purpose of ACA is to eventually slowdown U.S. healthcare spending but I believe ACA could potentially contribute to increase spending. Since more people are insured, insurance companies must spend more money on the chronic diseases of newly insured people, which adds to the cost. Also, more insured means more people will use health care services, fill prescriptions (and sometimes for unnecessary purposes), which will only add to unnecessary healthcare spending. The quality of care may also decrease, since doctors and other health professionals are forced to see many more patients. However, there are definitely advantages to the ACA, such as preventing insurance companies to avoid covering patients with pre-existing conditions, and more coverage for youth under 26. I am still skeptical of how the ACA will decrease healthcare spending in the long run and improve health outcomes.

Through the discussions we had in class, I've realized that changing the U.S. health system is a lot more complicated than I thought. The more I think about it, and as we've talked about it in class, this country’s healthcare somewhat reflects this nation’s cultural beliefs centered on individualism and capitalism. Personally, I believe that universal health care in the United States will be very difficult to achieve because this country is so focused on capitalism and independence, thus I don’t think people will be willing to make sacrifices to provide that access. For example, in countries that provide Universal Health Care such as South Korea and Germany, many healthcare professionals, particularly doctors, make less than a fraction of what they make in the United States. Due to the high cost for professional schools in America, I believe most healthcare professionals will not tolerate the low income. If we did implement UHC in the United States, I believe the whole country will need to be restructured.

Overall, it was very valuable for me to get an understanding of healthcare system in America and comparing it to healthcare systems globally.