Will Doctors Refuse to Take on New Patients Who Obtain Coverage Under the Affordable Care Act?

Some opponents of the Affordable Care Act claimed that the Act could self-destruct because providers would refuse to take on newly covered (supposedly, non-lucrative) patients, particularly those covered under the Act's massive Medicaid expansion. Not so, at least according to a new study in Michigan conducted by the Ann Arbor-based Center for Healthcare Research & Transformation. That study found that 81% of Michigan primary care physicians were interested in taking on newly insured patients. And of those doctors, 90% percent of family physicians, internal medicine practitioners, and pediatricians said they'd take on new Medicaid patients. Read about the study here.