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Ashton Irvin

Professor Adam Padgett

ENGL 102

14 March 2017

Inquiry: Do the benefits of the Affordable Care Act outweigh the negatives, and what are the

consequences of repealing it?

Thesis: If the Affordable Care Act is repealed, it is going to benefit more people than it hurts

because the negative aspects of this act outweigh the benefits.

Gottlieb, Scott. "Do You Win Or Lose Under Obamacare? What You Must Know To See How

You'll Fare." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 20 Nov. 2013. Web. 22 Feb. 2017.

This article clearly says that some people will benefit from the ACA and some will not.

Whether you benefit or do not benefit depends on three issues that this article lists. These issues

include how much you value some of the benefits offered by Obamacare, is it worth the added

costs, and how much effect will it have on your choice of doctors. When Obama came up with

the ACA he was aiming to create a uniform set of coverage and costs in health insurance. This

way no one pays more than another person, and everyone would receive the same benefits.

Insurance companies charge everyone a different amount, and a lot of them charge the elderly

more than everyone else. Obama wanted to change all of this. This article is going to help me list

the positives and negatives of the act, and this is going to help me give specific examples to back

up my argument of the negatives outweighing the positives. After reading the authors biography
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attached underneath his name, I would have to say that this article is reliable because he is an

expert in the field of medicine, and he analyzes policy, regulation, and public health. This article

is three years old, but is going to give me a perspective of the pros and cons of the act a few

years ago so that I can compare it to pros and cons now.

Hader, Richard. "Affordable Care Act...Ready, Set, Go!." Nursing Management, vol. 43, no. 8,

Aug. 2012, p. 6. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1097/01.NUMA.0000418130.27878.24.

The U.S. Supreme Court declared the Affordable Care Act constitutional which started

some changes in US healthcare. In this article it states that the act could allow thirty to forty

million Americans to be covered by health insurance. Following this argument, the author states

that because of this, our countrys health could improve overall. Some business owners were

concerned that the act could force them into bankruptcy because of what they would have to pay

to cover their employees. The author of this article argues that since the health of our country

will improve, then that means our workforce will be healthier which can save money in the long

run. Towards the end of the article, he begins to talk about how nurses should take on leading

roles in the new healthcare delivery system. This article is going to be used whenever I want to

discuss the other side of my argument, but it is not going to be used much. The author of this

article is credible because he is the Senior Vice President and Chief Nurse Officer of the

Meridian Health System in Neptune, New Jersey. This article however is strongly biased in favor

of the ACA, so this article will be used but not as much as my other articles.
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Oberlander, Jonathan. "The End of Obamacare." New England Journal of Medicine, vol. 376, no.

1, 05 Jan. 2017, pp. 1-3. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1056/NEJMp1614438.

The Affordable Care Act has been under protection by former President Obama, but now

that Donald Trump is president, it is no longer being protected. The ACA has accomplished a lot,

but it does not have a strong support from the public. If the benefits of the ACA outweighed the

cons, then there might be talk about reform rather than repeal. Trumps administration could

reverse the orders of Obamas administration and weaken the act. The ACA has helped 20

million people gain insurance since it was enacted, so repealing it would cause many of these

Americans to lose their insurance. Many Americans are confused about the Affordable Care

Acts benefits. This article discusses the effects of repealing the ACA and what Republicans and

the Trump administration plan to do. This article will be useful in my research paper because it

will be able to discuss the effects of repealing it to be able to effectively argue the benefits of

reforming or repealing the ACA. This article is credible because it is very recent, and the author

is a professor and chair of Social Medicine at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

Pollack, Craig Evan, et al. "A View from the Front Line - Physicians' Perspectives on ACA

Repeal." New England Journal of Medicine, vol. 376, no. 6, 09 Feb. 2017, pp. e8.1-e8.3.

EBSCOhost, doi:10.1056/NEJMp1700144.

With Donald Trump being elected president in the most recent election, it has caused

controversy over the United States health care policy. Trumps administration has been talking

about repealing the Affordable Care Act, but they have also been embracing some of its policies.

In a survey from 2015, primary care physicians were split almost in half on whether they favored
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the law or not. In a more recent study, it was found that 15.1% of physicians wanted the law to

be completely repealed, and physicians were less likely to want the law repealed than the public.

Amongst all people, there is a split in between the support of covering preexisting conditions and

policies that ensure that everyone gets covered. Over the next few months, debate over this topic

is going to become more controversial, and people are going to suggest new ways to replace it.

Primary care physicians opinions about the law could be a huge factor on whether or not the law

is repealed or revised. This information is going to give me another perspective on this issue. So

far, all that I have researched has been views from the general public or from an expert, but this

takes in consideration the views of the physicians and the ways that their views could influence

future decisions regarding the law. This article is credible because the author lists their

references, and after going through the references, I am able to see that the information is

reliable. Also the author, Craig Evan Pollack, is an associate professor of medicine at Johns

Hopkins University, so he has a credible status.

Rudnicki, Marek, et al. "Expected and Unexpected Consequences of the Affordable Care Act:

The Impact on Patients and Surgeons-Pro and Con Arguments." Journal of

Gastrointestinal Surgery, vol. 20, no. 2, Feb. 2016, pp. 351-360. EBSCOhost,

doi:10.1007/s11605-015-3032-8.

The Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, was enacted in 2010. Observations

have been made of supporting and opposing views on the ACA. This article discusses how

surgeons would become key members of health care systems. All of the effects of the ACA go

unnoticed, but it has had a huge impact and has changed the American Health Care System.

Throughout the article, the pros and cons are summarized, and it discusses expected and
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unexpected consequences of the health reform. The unexpected consequences it lists are going to

help me This article is credible because it is timely, and the author lists all forty-five of their

references at the end. By doing this, the author is ensuring that their own work is backed up by

many other sources.

"Why Is Obamacare so Controversial?" BBC News. BBC, 11 Nov. 2016. Web. 27 Feb. 2017.

The Affordable Care Acts goal is to provide health insurance to the people in the United

States that do not have it. It requires that all Americans have health insurance, but it offers ways

to help cover some of the costs. It also covers people with pre-existing health conditions which is

something many private insurance companies deny. Ultimately, this acts main goal is to slow the

growth of healthcare spending. While running for president, Donald Trump was open to keeping

some of the policies of Obamacare. Conservatives oppose the law and call the act a job killer,

but stats say otherwise. This article claims that if Obamacare is repealed, then twenty-two

million people would lose medical insurance. It also highlights three benefits of Obamacare

which is children can stay on their parents plan until they are twenty-six, pre-existing health

conditions do not matter, and women cannot be charged more than men. It also lists the flaws

with one being that premiums could rise about twenty-five percent in 2017. This source is fairly

reliable because BBC typically stays neutral in its arguments. It gives both benefits and flaws to

ensure this neutrality, and it clearly explains the purpose of the law. It is also recent so this article

is not outdated on this issue. However, this article does not list an author, so this could

potentially be a problem.
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Ashton,

Youve done a great job summarizing these sources and explaining their positions. Also,

Im glad to see super recent articles. Your oldest one is from 2012, which is just about on the

edge of how old youd want to go with this topic. After having read through your annotations,

Im not sure why youve taken the position you have taken. All the sources seem to point to the

idea that at the very least repealing the law wouldnt be a great idea. So, Id like to see you

engage these sources a bit more and give me a clearer idea as to why youve taken the position

youve taken. That is, your sources seem to point to more benefits than negatives. So, in your

research paper, youll have to really show me where youre coming from. Looking forward to

seeing how this paper shapes up.