Economist Jonathan Gruber, Essay Example

The goal of this analysis is based on critiquing three articles by economist Jonathan Gruber. The first article by Gruber (2013) called “Evaluating the Massachusetts healthcare reform was an analysis by Gruber of the Affordable Care Act(ACA) and its implications into the future. The author implies that the ACA has change the landscape of healthcare for uninsured people in the United States. Gruber indicates that the redistribution of healthcare dollars has been shifted to providing affordable coverage for every American. In addition, it is a naïve approach to comparing the Massachusetts model of healthcare insurance because it a higher income levels, larger medical sector and higher rates. This is the perfect model to predict the future impact of ACA because Massachusetts has been applying their own healthcare reform long before ACA was enacted. However, in disagreement with the assessment because Massachusetts has additional healthcare reform that has made more changes than ACA. The results of the Massachusetts reform have led to the largest Long-Term Insurance provider to pull out of Massachusetts. This indicates that the ACA over the long term works because the true reason Long-Term Insurance is pulling out because of they cannot make extremely high profit margins. This indicates that soon healthcare premiums will be regulated in the future and insurance companies will no longer have a monopoly.  The healthcare insurance prices on the healthcare gateway are transparent for the first time in history. In contrast, Gruber (2013) does makes some good points that such as the primary care for elderly is overburdening the system because of rising cost and most seniors needing medical care. Overall, Gruber does an excellent job of explaining the impact of ACA and how it has changed the healthcare reform for the United States. Gruber found that ACA actually helps reduce and managed the cost of senior care while Medicare rates are continuing to rise. The ACA has a positive effect on the public and private healthcare industry because providing choices for families and individuals make insurance companies compete for business. In agreement with Gruber that the future of ACA does have some good points however, we must wait a few more years before we can measure the true impact.

The Gruber and Long (2011) article “Projecting The impact of the affordable care act on California” discuss the impact on providing healthcare insurance coverage for millions of constituents in California. There are three points Gruber (2011) makes about the ACA impact is the employer-sponsored insurance will decline, low-income households will benefit and the families with the most disposable income levels will pay more for health insurance. The first point of disagreement that employee-sponsored insurance will decline because the insurance will decline for employees however this is a good thing. The employees now have a freedom of choice instead of forced to paying high prices for insurance from the employer. The employee can opt out of the employee sponsored healthcare insurance coverage while opting for the ACA insurance healthcare gateway products. However, in agreement that the low-income families will benefit and the those will high incomes will may considerably more for insurance. In disagreement with Gruber concerning the argument that high income earnings should not be penalized by paying more for insurance is flawed. In reality, a family making $400,000 has more tax breaks that the average person making $25,000 per year and they have hundreds of loopholes to pay less tax as possible. However, the ACA laws have caught up with the high earners that have been getting the best tax writes for years now have to contribute to the ACA healthcare reform falls upon deaf ears. It is morally and ethically right that the high wage earners pay more for insurance and those that are low income pay less for their insurance.

The article by Ananat, Gruber and Levine (2007) called “Abortion legalization and life-cycle fertility found in a study using the Census and Vital Statistics data that the legalization of abortions has reduced the number women having abortions and there is an increase in women are remaining without child through their most fertile years. The article was done very well and detailed enough for the layman’s person to understand the issues. Consequently, what the article did not discuss was the different states of abortions which is argued when is an egg considered a life and the moral issues that are still being argue today.

The primary intent was to discuss the history of abortion before legalization and after legalization however, they article would have more credibility discuss the obvious life of fetus argument. The discuss of pre-legalization of abortion is critical to any argument because the number of abortions was massive but more importantly the discuss of how many women died needlessly. These are moral issues that the authors did not address and the pre-legalization impact such as illegal abortion clinics, improper reasons for abortions and young women lives that were destroyed. The article by Gruber was interesting and very informative but there are other issues that must be considered to addressing the legalization of abortion.

References

Gruber, J. (2013) Evaluating the Massachusetts healthcare reform. Health Services Research. 48(6pt1): 1819-1824. (6p)

Long, P., & Gruber, J. (2011). Projecting The impact of the affordable care act on California. Health Affairs, 30(1), 63-70 8p. doi:10.1377/hlthaff.2010.0961

Ananat, E. O., Gruber, J., & Levine, P. (2007). Abortion legalization and life-cycle fertility. Journal of Human Resources, 42(2), 375-397.