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What the Supreme Court ruling in King v. Burwell means for women’s health
By finding in favor of the Obama Administration, the Supreme Court averted a death knell for the Affordable Care Act—at least until the next...
It is still unclear how the ACA affects physician income.1 When ObGyns who participated in Health Insurance Exchanges in 2015 were asked whether their income was affected, approximately 60% reported no change, 30% reported a decrease, and 9% said it increased.1
Medicus reported that physicians’ approval of the ACA has declined since last year. In their 2016 report, 71% of respondents gave the ACA a passing grade (A, B, C, or D), compared with 83% in 2015 and 77% in 2014. Fewer than 3% of 2016 respondents gave the ACA an “A.”12
Medscape reported that 36% of ObGyns have seen an increase in the number of patients due to the ACA.1 A 2015 report from the Kaiser Family Foundation and The Commonwealth Fund assessing the experiences and attitudes of primary care providers after the first year of ACA coverage found no association with lower- and higher-quality care whether or not patient load had increased.13 Among those in the Medscape report who said that quality of care had worsened, 21% had a greater patient load; 18% reported no increase in patient load. Seventy-eight percent of physicians whose patient load increased said that quality had stayed the same or improved; 82% of those who experienced no increase in patient load reported that quality had stayed the same or improved.1
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