This weekend on YOUR HEALTH® Adam & Cristy will be talking with Dr. Sam Weir, Associate Professor of UNC Family Medicine , about The President, Obamacare, and Your Health: Thoughts of a Family Medicine Leader.
Listen to the Show!
Download the episode from the Carolina Digital Repository
- Research that Matters (min 0-10)
- Conversations with Dr. Sam Weir (min 10-30)
- House Calls (min 30-40)
Additional Commentary: The Affordable Care Act and Your Health
The consequences of being uninsured are paramount. Individuals often enter care late, and care is not coordinated. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is a blueprint for reforming our healthcare system, the biggest in decades. The law is extensive in breadth and scope, e.g. expanding preventive services available to individuals covered by Medicare, offering individuals financial assistance to make healthcare more affordable through the insurance marketplaces, to changing how services are reimbursed. These changes align with the three key issues that face our healthcare system today as outlined by Dr. Sam Weir in his recent interview on Your Health Radio. Those issues, as he states, include access, quality, and cost of healthcare.
It is clear to me that many of the 1.5 million uninsured people in North Carolina need help in understanding the ACA and what the insurance marketplace could mean for them. I have been participating in a variety of community events over the past six months to answer questions about the ACA and then to help people navigate the new marketplace. For example, here at UNC Family Medicine, we identified our uninsured households sending them information about the ACA as well as offering them assistance through trained counselors on our staff. People have come with earnest questions and hope of gaining insurance, many for the very first time. We have had success in a variety of ways from successfully helping people chose a plan, to answering questions about Medicare, to enrolling people into Medicaid.
At the center of it all, Dr. Weir notes that these changes can establish for people a relationship with a primary care team at a patient centered medical home. I couldn’t agree more and believe all Americans deserve access to high quality, low cost healthcare. I feel better knowing we have this blueprint for change, and leaders like Dr. Weir who not only know the issues but are apart of the solutions.
Sherry Hay, MPA, is the Director of Community Health Initiatives and Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Family Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
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Paul Grundy and the Patient Centered Medical Home (YOUR HEALTH Radio July 2010)
