Right Versus Privilege: An Evaluation of the Affordable Care Act through Discourse Analysis

Since its inception, the Affordable Care Act has prompted many different genres of discourse within governmental, media, business, and cultural realms. The narratives common in each realm, as well as the means by which they are shared, influence the everyday consumer and overall image of the act (Fairclough 1995, 2003). These discourses shape a sense of what is possible. Through critical discourse analysis, focusing on both how the authors felt constrained by the message they must deliver and the way in which established discourses shape what is possible to imagine about health care in the future. In particular, I want to focus on how the federal government shaped the discourse on the Affordable Care Act around the concept of human rights and implied privilege and how this shaped the way in which the act was perceived by the general public.