development not just for policy-holders, but for the nation as a whole, which spends more per capita on healthcare than any other developed country. “For a couple of the states that have been in this now for a little while, at least in some of the demonstration projects, they’re finding that healthcare insurance premium is not rising as rapidly as it had been before,” Ping says. “That was one of the big concerns [with the law].” The law moves more young, healthy people into the insurance market. Young people are typically healthy, thus they require far fewer medical services. In essence, the premium dollars paid by younger people will subsidize the healthcare for their parents. Ping also says that the law should reduce the amount of money healthcare providers spend each year on uncompensated care. When a person has no insurance and cannot pay his or her medical bills, these costs are spread out across the board, thereby increasing costs for everyone else. Stephen Weinman, MD, one of the principals at First Care Walk-In Medical Center in Highland, says that he and his colleagues are as curious as everyone else when it comes to the effects the law will have. “Most doctors that I talk to, we still really don’t know how it’s going to affect us,” Weinman says. Weinman is worried, however, that our county’s current shortage of doctors will become more of a problem as more and more people enter the system. As it is now, getting an appointment as a new patient often comes with a long wait. “For most doctors, as a new patient it will take you one to two months to get in and have an appointment,” Weinman says, adding that a recent report he read shows that this area is already underserved due to a lack of medical professionals. There are also concerns that information regarding the big changes that are coming in the next few months is not being disseminated as well as it could be, and that this will result in a great deal of confusion as the plan is rolled out. The healthcare landscape is about to undergo arguably its biggest shift in this nation’s history. And, for many Americans, whether the positive aspects of the law end up outweighing the potential downsides is something that remains to be seen.
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