You Want Affordable Care? Common Sense from a Practicing Physician

You Want Affordable Care? Common Sense from a Practicing Physician

Policy Brief No. 2013-2 * 2013-04-10 16:14:30

By Dr. Jill Q. Vecchio, MD

Abstract: Editor: The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, President Obama’s prescription for reforming American health care, could not be more misleadingly named. As the public is beginning to realize, with its full implementation now upon us, the PPACA law neither protects patients – who face rationing, shortages, and delays – nor guarantees affordable care. It only guarantees higher premiums, higher taxes, and worst of all, degradation of care for many in the most vulnerable groups – older people under Medicare and lower-income people under Medicaid. And now Colorado is about to further overburden its already dysfunctional Medicaid system by massively expanding the rolls with what is perceived as “free money” under PPACA. This policy brief is an attempt to step back and see the big picture on what has made health care unaffordable to so many, and how we can start making it more affordable once again – especially for America’s poor.