Moral Obligation and Social Rationality of Government: The Affordable Care Act.The Affordable Care Act (ACA) has elicited mixed reactions from the people of America. The act was proposed on March 2012 and waits approval by the congress.

Moral Obligation and Social Rationality of Government: The Affordable Care Act.The Affordable Care Act (ACA) has elicited mixed reactions from the people of America. The act was proposed on March 2012 and waits approval by the congress.
Introduction

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) has elicited mixed reactions from the people of America. The act was proposed on March 2012 and waits approval by the congress. The act seeks to ensure that the 15 percent-uninsured people in America access affordable care. The health case will be subsidized through government-imposed mandate to ensure low costs and improve the health care. The social obligation of government is morally imperative and consistent with section 1 and article 8 of the U.S constitution. Opposition of the act based on individual ethic is morally, economically and socially irrational.

Discussion

The debate on ACA has been centered on the terms “moral obligation” and “social rationality”. Those opposed to the act claim that they are not supposed to be coerced to take insurance cover (Okeke, 2011, p. 4). They argue that moral obligation is an individual obligation and it is one’s judgment that guides one to do right or wrong. Therefore, they should be left to choose to take cover or not. Few people, approximately 15% without the cover, should not make the government coerce them to help the poor by contributing to the kitty. They believe that every person should take an initiative to take insurance cover. On the other hand, social rationality is built on the premise of taking care of all the people welfare to ensure that problems of health care are resolved (Kaebnick, 2012, p. 2). The proponents of this act base their argument on that provision of quality health care to all people of America is a right and a responsibility of the government to provide facilitation of achieving this right.

The ACA act contains provisions that will ensure that health care provided is of high quality and accessible to all Americans. Furthermore, the healthcare services will be more consumers friendly. The government will ensure that the number of people with access to the health care increases. For instance, 46 million people who lack insurance cover will be insured, and will therefore be guaranteed to access affordable and quality medical cover (Okeke, 2011, p. 6). With coming into effect of the act, the number of people in America with access to insurance cover is expected to increase from the current 85% to 94% in the initial stages. Under the act, no insurance company will be allowed to cancel any policy in case a person gets sick. The doughnut gap will be closed as adults will be able to access drugs at reduced prices.

The act has a saving program, which will require the insured to deposit funds at the beginning of the years, and the funds will be used to meet the health expenses (Davis & Stremikis, 2011, p. 1201). In case expense is withdrawn from any other fund, the rate of taxes will increase from 10 to 20 percent beginning from 2016. Adults will be charged medical expense fees in excess of 10 percent up from 7.5 percent. The older people above 65 years will be charged lower taxes compared to the younger generation (Okeke, 2011, p. 4). Policy analysts are worried and contend that the aged who incur higher medical care and have higher income will pay less compared to the young people. This creates some inequalities as those with less pay higher taxes compared to those with higher income (Okeke, 2011, p. 4). The blame of insurance companies for charging higher costs of health will be resolved under the ACA provisions. Insurers will be obliged to spend 80 percent of their premium dollars on medical care services and on its quality improvement initiatives to avoid overspending on marketing activities, overhead, and salary to CEO and profits (Jacobson, 2011, p. 934).

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