The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare)On March 23, 2010, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) was officially signed into law . To some, it is better known as Obamacare. The goal of Obamacare is to provide more Americans with quality health insurance and reduce the growth of U.S. health care costs. This change in healthcare has had a major impact on businesses. Some would say good things, others bad things. The changes and effects on businesses will be discussed in the following essay. First, let's start by talking about what Obamacare actually is. As previously stated, the goal of Obamacare is to provide more Americans with quality health insurance and reduce the growth of health care spending in the United States. It comes with a number of new benefits, rights and protections. For example, young adults can stay in their parents' plans until age 26. It also helps prevent discrimination based on things like gender and pre-existing medical conditions. Obamacare itself does not replace your current insurance, Medicare, or Medicaid. Rather, it regulates health insurance against bad practices. Now, how does Obamacare affect businesses? To begin, we will look at the negatives. Some economists fear that this could ultimately dampen employment and job growth. This measure should not concern small businesses with fewer than 50 employees. However, that means these small businesses may well be hesitant to expand beyond the magic number of 50. This hesitation could lead to the slowdown in job growth that economists fear. An example of this was when Darden Restaurants, which owns Red Lobster among others, announced that it would begin cutting employment starting...... middle of paper ...... lions of Americans will now have access to affordable health care. insurance. The number of uninsured Americans is expected to decline due to lower policy rates. Additionally, young adults, up to the age of 26, can remain within their parents' plans, as previously noted. Obamacare also says that insurance companies also cannot discriminate against patients with pre-existing health conditions, which is a benefit to those people. Now let's move on to the business side of how Obamacare positively affects businesses. Currently, insurance companies are required to pay for certain preventive services. These include, but are not limited to, mammograms and colonoscopies. This means that the government could step in and say that it needs to invest more money in preventative procedures regarding biotechnology or new vaccines. How is this positive??