In March 2010, Congress passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, referred to as the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The ACA was enacted to address certain fundamental problems with our health care system, including the growing numbers of uninsured, poor overall population health, poor or uneven quality of care, and rising health care costs.
In March 2010, Congress passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, referred to as the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The ACA was enacted to address certain fundamental problems with our health care system, including the growing numbers of uninsured, poor overall population health, poor or uneven quality of care, and rising health care costs. The ACA included provisions that allowed for the expansion of coverage to the uninsured, focused on prevention to improve population health, and placed an emphasis on increased quality measurement and reporting. The ACA also included provisions aimed at increasing the supply of health professionals, strengthening the health care safety net, and reducing health care expenditures.
In 2010, in order to implement the new law, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services and North Carolina Department of Insurance asked the North Carolina Institute of Medicine to convene stakeholders and other interested people to examine the new law to ensure that the decisions the state made in its implementation of the ACA served the best interest of the state as a whole. This document details the progress, or lack thereof, North Carolina has made regarding the recommendations made by the ACA workgroups and Overall Advisory Group.