If anyone can communicate to a room full of emergency physicians the importance of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and what it means to the specialty, it’s Steven Stack, MD, FACEP, an emergency department medical director in two states who currently practices in Lexington, Kentucky, and president-elect of the American Medical Association (AMA). He will deliver the Colin C. Rorrie, Jr. Lecture at ACEP14. “In the United States if you have no health insurance, it’s a cash economy for health care, which means no coverage, no care,” he said. “And we know for an undeniable fact that people with no health insurance live sicker and die younger.”
Colin C. Rorrie, Jr. Lecture
The ACA: The Rocky Road to Health Reform
Monday, Oct. 27, 12:30–1:20 p.m.
Skyline Ballroom W375C
If anyone can communicate to a room full of emergency physicians the importance of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and what it means to the specialty, it’s Steven Stack, MD, FACEP, an emergency department medical director in two states who currently practices in Lexington, Kentucky, and president-elect of the American Medical Association (AMA). He will deliver the Colin C. Rorrie, Jr. Lecture at ACEP14. “In the United States if you have no health insurance, it’s a cash economy for health care, which means no coverage, no care,” he said. “And we know for an undeniable fact that people with no health insurance live sicker and die younger.”
Dr. Stack will talk about the ACA’s impact on insurance coverage, current trends, and expected developments that affect emergency physicians.
“What we should want as emergent specialists [is for] patients to have…the right care in the right place at the right time,” Dr. Stack said. “Sometimes that’s the emergency department, sometimes that’s a primary care office, sometimes that’s a specialist. Sometimes we bristle, often rightfully, in the emergency community when others say, ‘The ER is too expensive. You just keep people out of the ER, and everything will be great.’ Any competent emergency physician knows that that’s a false way to look at that challenge.”
Richard Quinn is a freelance writer in New Jersey.
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