The Affordable Care Act is being looked at by government officials and agencies this week. When the law was implemented a large amount of tax funds were allocated to different programs. Subsidies were given, co-ops were started, and state based exchanges went into operation. Now the ACAs use of funds is being looked at with a fine tooth comb.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) created fictitious enrollments to see how well the system works in providing subsidies to Americans. The problem was eleven out of twelve of those accounts were approved for subsidies with fake documentation, which means the system failed and provided tax payers dollars to accounts that were undeserving of the funds. This is only one example of tax payers dollars being misused. At this time the wrongful allocation of tax funds is visible, but what can be done to fix all of the issues.
There needs to be a system of checks and balances that allows the ACA to do what it was meant to do. There has been a large division between Republicans and Democrats side as to what needs to happen with the ACA, but both agree that changes do need to be made. Hadley Health Manning of the Independent Women’s Forum states, ” Democrats may hesitate to support more oversight of a program that they created. Yet if they truly want this law to succeed, they ought to want to prevent the misuse of resources and ensure a clear record of the law’s implementations”
Now that the ACA is in place we know that it is here to stay, but the growing pains in the first years of enactment have been more than painful. The law needs to have its kinks worked out so that we can run efficiently as a country and supply healthcare to every American the way the ACA was intended. Grace-Marie Turner goes more in depth in the article she wrote on Forbes, read it HERE.