by Jared Rouse
There has been a lot of controversy about the Affordable Care Act since it was enacted in 2013. While some point to the fact that more than 20 million previously uninsured or underinsured people now have health care, others say that their health insurance premiums have more than doubled.
Health care providers are also conflicted about this issue.
“Having people move from insurance to Medicaid has been an extremely hard nut to overcome for hospitals,” Chris Thomas, the CEO of Community Hospital in Grand Junction, said.
He also said that they had seen an increase in Medicaid patients from 7 or 8 percent to almost 20 percent.
“It’s my understanding that Mesa County now has 24 percent of patients on Medicaid. And while that’s great that many people are now insured, Medicaid is a very poor payer to hospitals and doctors. Many physicians have started to limit the Medicaid patients they will actually see,” Thomas said. “This has forced many people to turn to the emergency room for their primary care, which is the last place we want to see people get their care. Emergency rooms are a lot more expensive than going to see their doctor in the clinic.”
As it turns out, Mesa County is the ninth most expensive county in the country to receive health care. When combined with the fact that Mesa County has 17 percent or more of its residents living below the poverty level, there is an apparent issue for health care providers.
When asked what Community Hospital would like to see in a replacement, Thomas said, “I would like to see something that actually addresses to the cost of health care, and more opportunities to reward low-cost and high-quality providers.”
For now, they are taking a “wait and see” approach to see if the act is repealed.
“I’m not really convinced it will be a repeal,” Thomas said. “Of course the republicans will have to say it’s a repeal, but I think it’s going to be more of a repeal and replace.”
Jason Cleckler, the CEO of Delta Memorial Hospital, is concerned that a total repeal without a replacement would hurt his hospital financially so much that it might force them to close. Delta Memorial has benefited from the Affordable Care Act.
“One of the big benefits for us is that more people in our community now have some type of insurance. And it’s reduced our bad debt from 10 percent to two and a quarter percent. So it’s brought some financial stability to the hospital, and it’s certainly improved access for the people we serve in our community.” Cleckler said. “We’ve benefited from some federal funding due to increases of medicare and medicaid, but also I think we’ve benefited from increased volume because people now don’t have as much of a barrier to accessing health care because of the cost or because of the lack of insurance.”
He also said that the Affordable Care Act is a good foundation, and that health care providers on both sides of the platform would agree that it needs some tweaks, and those tweaks should be making healthcare more affordable for the consumer.
“I would like to see a reform that focused on insurance companies, pharmaceuticals and also the medical supply companies.” Cleckler said. “To be honest there are so many measures within the Affordable Care Act that it would be quite difficult to replace it with something that doesn’t look like what the Affordable Care Act already is. So our hope is that there will be some positive tweaks and health care won’t be flipped upside down.”
