ACA Reforms: Affordable Care Act Seeks to Regularize Health Insurance.

This is a gradually moving process where some of the reforms were introduced in 2010 and going ahead, it seems that insurance landscape will witness a more consumer-centric transformation. It is just a matter of time before the entire health insurance sector will witness a revolution with the arrival of state exchanges.
The exchanges will behave in a matter similar to the online travel deals market where there is loads of competition, fair price practices prevail and the emphasis is on providing the consumer the maximum for every dollar spent. This is why many people have compared the state health exchanges to an Expedia.com, referring to the similarities between online marketplaces for health insurance and travel deals. Some of the most significant aspects of the ACA reforms have been listed below for your reading purposes.
Ever since 1998, premiums have been on the rise without substantially raising the quality of care. While millions of Americans suffer without the presence of adequate coverage, millions continue to suffer from sudden hikes in the plan rates which are usually not regulated by the state authorities. The market seems tilted heavily in the favor of insurers who realize that most people have no option but to seek health care enrollment of some sort. These are major conglomerates that have acquired some of the latest insurance software solutions that can decode the smallest of clerical mistakes made when filing a Medicare application or when filing a claim. The idea is to decline the claim or coverage on the flimsiest of excuses. Some industry analysts argue that the premium increases have resulted due to the higher cost of medical care.
However, most research studies opine differently where it is clearly visible that health insurance costs have outstripped the spending capabilities of people and not provided the best in medical care that the dollar can buy. Under the ACA mandates, premium hikes would have to be justified by the insurers who plan to sell their health plans on the exchanges. This basically means that every time a significant premium hike is sought by the insurer, the percentage increase would have to be explained where the insurer needs to provide proper statistical data to justify the hike. The insurance companies cannot continue to overpay their executives, absorb losses and pass them on to the consumer as the state exchange authorities have been given the liberty of holding audits into the functioning of the insurers.
The efforts of the ACA to liberalize the health insurance market and to ensure that typical issues like problems faced by seniors when seeking information about Medicare eligibility enrollment is underlined by the process in which the ACA was created. Much time and money was spent on collecting reports, seeking public opinions, publishing articles, investigating claim history of insurers and analyzing the growth of profit margins of insurers before the mandates were rolled out.
The ACA seek to cut the lengthy process through which the insurers can wriggle out of the claim. The reforms seek to create a much more transparent market where the premium hikes are based upon reasonable and solid evidence. However, this doesn’t mean that the insurers are being victimized by the health reforms. Proper rate reviews will be executed to ensure that the health costs are covered profitably for the insurers but in accordance with the 80-20 split where the insurers need to ensure that 80 cents out of every dollar earned are diverted towards providing benefits to the consumer or towards improving the medical care and coverage facilities.