Doctors have mixed opinions about the Affordable Care Act—and those opinions have a lot to do with their age, whether or not they work with the poor, and their ideology, according to health economist Benjamin Sommers of Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
In a January 13, 2017 CNN article, Sommers, associate professor of health policy and economics, said that liberal and Democratic-leaning doctors and younger doctors tend to have more positive views about the health care law, while conservative and Republican-leaning doctors and those who are older tend to be more skeptical about it.
Doctors who provide care to the uninsured, people on Medicaid, and vulnerable populations worry that Republican efforts to repeal the ACA will leave some of their patients unable to afford health care, Sommers told CNN. “They see more patients now who have health insurance, who can afford their prescriptions, who can come in to be seen,” he said.
But other doctors feel the ACA has burdened them with excessive administrative costs and paperwork. “Doctors who see mostly patients with private health insurance are much less likely to have seen [the ACA’s] benefits,” Sommers said.
Read or view the CNN article: What doctors think about the Affordable Care Act
Learn more
This Week in Health: The future of the Affordable Care Act (Harvard Chan School podcast)
Medicaid expansion under ACA linked with better health care, improved health for low-income adults (Harvard Chan School release)