American Government Partial Shut Down

AMERICAN GOVERNMENT'S PARTIAL SHUTDOWN:

INTRODUCTION:

The federal government of America need to be funded to perform all the activities. The Senate and The House of Representatives together constitute Congress of the United States of America. If the congress(Senate and the House) cannot agree on how to allocate the funds to various activities, they have to close down the government until they agree with each other. When the federal government lacks appropriate funding, they experience a funding gap. Under the Anti deficiency act, they must cease the operations, that means should shut down the government. Previously, the government had a shut down for 17 times. This is the 18th shut of the American government.

OBAMACARE OR AFFORDABLE CARE ACT:

The major intentions behind the introduction of obamacare are:

• It aims to provide subsidized healthcare to millions of uninsured.
• To provide essential benefits that were not the part of the existing policies.
• It provides mental health services to everyone.
• It also aims at birth control and preventive care.
• It aims to ban the discrimination based on gender and health history.

THE BACKLOGS OF OBAMACARE:

RISE IN THE HEALTH CARE COSTS:

There will be an increase in the health care costs about 6.1% on an average per year over the next decade.

INCREASE IN THE INSURANCE PREMIUMS:

The insurance for the better settled Americans is raised to meet the needs of the uninsured people which is unjustifiable. Mostly, the premiums were increased in case of businessmen and elite individuals.

FALL OF QUALITY OF GOOD HEALTH CARE:

• There will be a shortage of doctors due to the increase in the number of health care checkups and will be tough to treat the newly insured. 
• There will be a raise in the stakes for the schools and hospitals to train more doctors.
• There will be an increase in the crowd at emergency wards.
• There will be a hike in prices due to the scarce availability of resources to meet the needs.

THE STORY BEHIND THE SHUT DOWN OF THE GOVERNMENT:

The problem arose when the congress and the president, Barrack Obama started spending most of their funds on the Affordable Care Act(ACA) leaving behind the other schemes and measures. This led to a clash between the two houses of the government. The republicans in the House fought for months to delay or stop Obamacare. They say that Obamacare is responsible for the government takeover by $750 billion nearly by imposing the taxes on small businesses, investments and innovations. Few are benefited by receiving subsidies and health care but the others are paying the penalty on behalf of them. The expenditure to be spent has touched the ceiling. But the democrats argue  that the law would reduce the expenditure in 10 years but it is concluded to be unrealistic to expect such savings from medicare. The dream of Obamacare is to solve the problems of uninsured, which, even under the most optimistic assumptions will not do. The republicans are not against Obamacare but they are simply calling to fund the government equally to all the schemes except for funding of Obamacare alone. 

The House with majority republicans therefore passed a bill to the senate referring to the defunding of ACA and a continuing resolution(extending of finance or funding after the fiscal year inorder to make the bill, a success) till december for the other government fundings. But the senate did not accept for the defunding of ACA and amended the bill. The House even did not accept the amendment and included defunding of ACA again . Then Obama threatened to use his veto if anything delays ACA. The bill was again amended by the senate to remove defunding of ACA. Here, the bill must be accepted both by the senate and the house. In this case, the house speaker refused to vote the amended bill, thus leading to the shut down of the government and failure of the bill. 

The congress and the president should agree to raise the debt ceiling to avoid default public debt. The department of Treasury was forced to supply excess funds to the government. The treasury reported that the extra ordinary funds will be insufficient to meet the needs and further specified to raise the debt ceiling but Obama stated that he would go on a budget talk only if the house votes for the bill ACA. This is a big backlog of Obama's decision.

More than 8,00,000 employees were given an unpaid leave and another 1.3 million were required to work without an immediate pay and many services  were suspended due to the shut down of the government. 

ANTI DEFICIENCY ACT:

It is a legislation enacted by US congresss to prevent the making of exccess expenditure available in the appropriations and to maintain the debt ceiling. As the over spending reaches a particular high point, there must be a shut down of the government, according to this act.

 DEBT CEILING:

It is a mechanism to limit the amount that can be issued by the Department of Treasury to the federal government to perform its activities.

MY PERSPECTIVE:

I think the idea to promote health care is fabulous but over spending on a particular aspect does not make sense. There are many important activities to  be taken care of and the funding must be based on priority. There are many people incurring loss due to Obamacare and the spending on this purpose reached the ceiling. At present only 38% of the US population accept Obamacare as a good idea. The Republicans are right on their path to call for a shut down as it is now emerging a problem where many of the civilians are incurring loss due to heavy taxes levied upon them and few enjoying with the benefits. The goal really concluded to be unrealistic. So  it's better to move on with the funding of other activities now and let's hope for the future Obamacare success.