The road ahead for ObamaCare: A guide
Now that President Obama's health-care law has survived review by the U.S. Supreme Court, what will it actually do?
What is the purpose of the law?
The Affordable Care Act, or "ObamaCare," was cobbled together to address two huge problems with our existing health-care system. The first is that nearly 50 million Americans have no health insurance, and thus get no care until they are very sick or injured and show up at hospital emergency rooms — forcing others to assume the cost of that care. The second problem is that overall health-care costs are on an unsustainable trajectory, driven by expensive new medical technologies and drugs and by a fee-for-service system that rewards doctors and hospitals for providing more tests and more treatment, rather than for making people well. Health-care spending now consumes 18 percent of our economy; over the last decade alone, Medicare costs and private insurance premiums have doubled. "The status quo is unacceptable," said Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), who is also a doctor. "Everybody agrees on that."
http://theweek.com/article/index/230357/the-road-ahead-for-obamacare-a-guide
