Carolina Journal’s Dan Way reports on yet another group with serious concerns about ObamaCare.
Concern is rising among community health centers that serve nearly a half million patients in North Carolina yearly — most of them uninsured — that Obamacare may drain away their patients and doctors. Meantime, officials say, patients are antsy about how the law will affect them.
The Affordable Care Act, as Obamacare is officially known, mandates that everyone who is not covered by an employer-provided health plan purchase individual insurance by Jan. 1 or pay a fine. Enrollment is set to begin in state and federal health care exchanges Oct. 1, and includes tax-credit subsidies to participants who meet income eligibility standards.
Patients are “very curious, and very nervous, too,” about Obamacare’s effects on their health care, said Eugene Chalwe, director of Piedmont Health Services’ community health center in Carrboro, which serves between 2,400 and 3,600 patients a month.
