The Politics of Opposition to the Enactment of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in the United States

Abstract

All non-essential functions of the United States federal government were shut down during the first two weeks of October 2013, due to a lapse in appropriations for fiscal year 2014. This disruption has a root in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which was passed in March 2010 to overhaul the US healthcare system. The law was a compromise reached to reconcile opposition from various interest groups. By examining the politics of opposition to the enactment of the law, this study demonstrates how health policies in the United States are shaped by political and economic forces emanating from multiple sectors of society.

Keywords:

• health reform
• Obamacare
• opposition
• politics

Notes on Contributors

Zhang Wei received her doctoral degree in economics from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She was also a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Health Policy and Management in the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Currently Dr. Zhang teaches at the School of Labor and Human Resources, Renmin University of China in Beijing. She publishes on the impacts of economic and political policies on social welfare.

Marian Jarlenski is a PhD candidate in the Department of Health Policy and Management in the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Using policy analysis and econometric methods, she publishes on health policies and their impacts on health and health inequalities.

Notes

¹Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (H.R. 3590/Pub.L. 111–48, 124 Stat. 119, 2010).

²Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act (H.R. 2), 2011.