HA3300D – Healthcare Policy and Ethics

Discussion 04: Ethics in the Era of ACA

Chapter 5 of your textbook discussed how the ACA, or Affordable Care Act, is changing the business of health care, as well as the ethical issues raised by the Act (also known as “Obamacare”).

Get more background on the ACA’s effect on individuals by viewing “Affordable Care Act Goes into Effect” and “Obamacare in 2014: A Tale of Two States,” both from NBC Learn.

INITIAL POST

Now, imagine that you are a healthcare administrator who must explain the pros and cons of the ACA to your hospital’s Board of Trustees. Respond to the following questions in your post:

• Are there existing ethical dilemmas in the healthcare field that the ACA solves? What are they?
• What new ethical conflicts might your hospital face as a result of the ACA?
• Which ethical theorists have the most to say about the ACA?

Your initial post should be 8 – 10 sentences in length and include an APA-style references list.

Respond to your classmate’s post from the perspective of an individual patient. Does the ACA raise ethical dilemmas for you, the individual patient, that it does not raise for hospital administrators? What would you like healthcare administrators to know about the ACA as it relates to ethics?

Each of your responses should be 4 – 6 sentences, and refer to the textbook or other course material.