How does this affect doctors?
So far, we’ve established that the Affordable Care Act will require:
- Insurers to make coverage more easily available to individuals
- Most individuals to have health coverage
Who’s left out? That’s right—doctors. The same doctors many of whom are at odds with the insurers.
Make no mistake. Having health insurance will not be a guarantee that newly insured Americans will get all of the medical attention they need. In some cases, individuals may have a difficult time just finding a doctor.
Many currently-insured Americans are already having difficulty finding a doctor. As The New York Times reports, “Efforts by insurers to rein in health care costs by holding down physician fees — especially for primary care doctors, who play a critical role in health care though they are among the lowest paid doctors — appear to be accelerating the trend, and some patients say it’s getting harder to find an in-network physician.”
The Times goes on to report that a survey of over 13,000 doctors across the country found over half plan to take steps reducing patient access to their services over the next few years. Nearly seven percent, meanwhile, plan to switch to practices requiring patients to pay an annual fee or retainer along with other fees.
As the Times summarizes the situation: “Private health insurance used to be the ticket to a doctor’s appointment. But that’s no longer the case in some affluent metropolitan enclaves, where many physicians no longer accept insurance and require upfront payment from patients — cash, checks and credit cards accepted.”
If the situation regarding private insurance and doctors warrants concern, by most accounts people on Medicare have even more to be concerned about.
The number of persons without health insurance coverage in the United States is one of the primary concerns raised by advocates of health care reform . A person without health insurance is commonly termed uninsured (regardless of insurance of objects unrelated to health), and this article uses the term in this sense as well. According to the United States Census Bureau , in 2009 there were 50.7 million people in the US (16.7% of the population) who were without health insurance.
It determined that the proportion of Americans who were underinsured, uninsured, or whose health insurance had gaps had been growing steadily from the year 2003 through 2010. During that time, the number of people who were underinsured exploded to a point that it almost doubled. In 2003, there were 16 million underinsured people in the United States, but that figure rose considerably to 29 million by 2010.
The ACA addresses barriers to acquiring insurance coverage through expanded access to Medicaid, subsidies for private insurance, and health insurance market reforms. The majority of the coverage expansions in the ACA will take effect in 2014, at which point, there will be a requirement that individuals have health insurance coverage. The law will also prevent insurers from rejecting individuals or charging higher premiums based on health status. By 2016, the ACA is estimated to decrease the number of uninsured by nearly half, leaving far fewer individuals facing the health and financial risks that come with being uninsured.
This information comes from a new survey, conducted on behalf of InsuranceQuotes.com by Princeton Survey Research Associates International. The survey reveals that 64 percent of the uninsured say they haven’t decided whether they will buy health insurance by Jan. 1, 2014, as required by the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which is also known as Obamacare .
Having no health insurance also often means that people will postpone necessary care and forego preventive care – such as childhood immunizations and routine check-ups-completely. Because the uninsured usually have no regular doctor and limited access to prescription medications, they are more likely to be hospitalized for health conditions that could have been avoided.