For my group project I am covering the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. This week I am looking at three international websites and seeing how they cover Obamacare in the news.
The first site I went to was Aljazeera. The article I found was about how the Affordable Care Act will provide better mental health coverage for citizens. The Affordable Care Act will make insurers expand their coverage to cover mental illnesses and addictions just like they cover other illnesses. It is said that the debate of mental illnesses has become a major issue because of the “gun-related incidents involving people who may have had inadequately treated mental illnesses.”
The next site, BBC, had a larger selection of articles covering the Affordable Care Act so I chose to read the first one. This article was about how a consulting firm, McKinsey & Co, had briefed White House Officials of the probably glitches with the Obamacare website. Even though Obama and his office knew about these glitches they decided to let the website launch on Oct. 1 anyways. Because of the glitches many Americans were not allowed to complete the enrollment process and successfully sign up for healthcare insurance. Democrat’s have felt uncertain about re-election chances in 2014 because of the problematic rollout of the Obamacare process.
The last site I am looking at is The Guardian. I found an article on how Obamacare is being threatened by Republicans so that at the state level it will no longer be effective. The American Legislative Exchange Council, also known as Alec, has proposed the Health Care Freedom Act to stop Obamacare laws from going into full affect. This act “threatens to strip health insurers of their licenses to do new business on the federal exchanges should they accept any subsidies under the system.” Alec sees this as justifiable because it protects local employers from the mandate on employers. In Dec., Alec will be holding its nationwide summit in Washington and will discuss this act further as well as more model bills that will be presented.