The final paper for this course will bring together all of the concepts covered in the previous weeks. (Notes on concepts attached) You should review these concepts and apply them to the following topic.
Just as with any other cost involved in running a business, health care also presents a complex set of expenditures.
The Affordable Health Care Act (ACA) was enacted in March, 2010 (Healthcare.gov, n.d.) to increase the availability of health care to Americans. Several changes have been made to the law in recent years, and as recently as 2021, adjustments were made to the provisions of the ACA (Andrews, 2021). In this capstone paper, you will analyze the impact of the new law on expenditures for hospitals in terms of the effects on revenue and costs.
References
Andrews, M. (2021, March 23). Covid rescue package offers help for health insurance: Here’s how to get the most benefit. NBCnews.com. https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-care/covid-rescue-package-offers-help-health-insurance-here-s-how-n1261776
Healthcare.gov. (n.d). Affordable Care Act (ACA). https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/affordable-care-act/
Activity Instructions
You should think about your audience for the paper as a hospital that would like to know what the effects on their revenues and costs will be given the new law.
Using the concepts you have learned in this class, up to and including this week, you will:
First, analyze the law and potential changes on health care expenditures as a whole in the United States from the time before the Affordable Health Care Act was passed to the present time.
Then, compare the changes in expenditures on health care if a single-payer plan was adopted.
You may consider including supply and demand in the health care market (both on the output market and on the input markets), elasticity, Economies of Scale and Scope, incentives facing the market participants, the role that preventative medicine may have, moral hazard and adverse selection issues, availability of insurance, as well as any other concepts from the course that you find relevant.
At the end of your submission, include a brief Design Statement explaining the process and tools you used to develop your work. Your statement should be about a paragraph or so, in your own words (rather than formally written), and unique to this assignment.
Why are we asking for this? Find out more about Design Statements.
Writing and Submission Requirements
6-8 pages not including title page or references page
References page (minimum of 5 resources)
APA format
Note several items from the prompt: first, this is asking about health care expenditures, NOT about expenditures on insurance (although insurance may be something that affects healthcare expenditures). Second, this is not asking what your opinions of the law are, rather on the effects. Regardless of whether you’re entirely in favor or entirely against the ACA, if you were affected by the law (say you were in the HR department of a business or in the medical industry) you would have to follow the law regardless of your opinions.
