Robert King reports for the Washington Examiner on a recent assessment of the Affordable Care Act’s likely impact on American health care.
Obamacare is expected to improve Americans’ health, but at the expense of a poorly prepared healthcare system, according to a new study.
While more uninsured people are getting coverage, so far there has been little evidence of the law’s effects on health. A new study published in the journal Health Affairs Wednesday examined the estimate of the healthcare law’s expansion of coverage on managing several chronic diseases.
Researchers analyzed data from 1999 to 2012 from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey that evaluates relationships between health insurance and the diagnosis and management of diabetes, high cholesterol and hypertension.
The study found that people with insurance had significantly higher probabilities of being diagnosed with a chronic condition, by 14 percentage points for diabetes and high cholesterol and nine points for hypertension. …
… Since the passage of the healthcare law, the uninsured rate has dropped to under 10 percent of the U.S. population. That is supposed to be just the beginning as the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicted the number of non-elderly Americans without insurance would be reduced by half thanks to the law.
If that happens, more than 1.5 million currently uninsured people with previously diagnosed chronic conditions could become newly diagnosed.
That is a positive outcome, as a major goal of Obamacare was to expand coverage and lower the uninsured rate, the study said.
However, there is the question of how the healthcare system will handle another 1.5 million people getting treatment for chronic conditions.
“These people will need regular access to health care providers, and policy makers need to rethink their strategy for ensuring that newly insured patients can get the care they need,” the study said.
For example, nurse practitioners should be allowed to shoulder more of the burden of care, the study suggested.
How to deal with the influx has been a point of contention in the Obamacare debate. Opponents have argued that the law would flood hospitals and doctors offices with patients and overburden the healthcare system.
