The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act: no rhetoric, just the facts

since Medicare and Medicaid were created in the 1960s. The law will expand access to health insurance for millions of uninsured Americans, make that coverage more secure, and promote new delivery systems and payment paradigms that focus on prevention and high-quality care. The Patient Protection and AffordableCare Act (PPACA) was signed into lawon March 23, 2010.1 The law is designed to expand access to health insurance to the unin-sured, provide enhanced consumer protections for those with private health insurance, stabilize and close gaps in the Medicare program, prioritize preventive care, establish the personal responsibil-ity to have health insurance ’ and explore delivery system reforms that will reward quality of care and patient outcomes. The implementation of the law began in September 2010 and will continue until January 2014, when all provisions will be in place. The description that follows is based on the law a