Abstract

On March 23, 2010, President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law. ACA aims to improve access to care and health outcomes through a number of mechanisms, including requiring most individuals to carry health insurance, prohibiting insurers from denying health insurance coverage based on pre-existing conditions, and creating exchanges through which individuals and families not eligible for employer- or government-sponsored health insurance may purchase coverage. While the Act is aimed primarily at improving individual health by increasing access to health insurance, it also contains a number of provisions targeted directly at improving health at the population level. Most of these provisions, which encompass a variety of disease prevention and access-to-care initiatives, are found in ACA Title IV.