Study Findings from University of Arizona Broaden Understanding of Affordable Care Act (Opposition to Obamacare: A Closer Look)

Managed Care Weekly Digest

By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Managed Care Weekly Digest -- Investigators discuss new findings in Affordable Care Act. According to news reporting out of Tucson, Arizona, by NewsRx editors, research stated, "Prior telephone surveys have reported two main reasons for opposition to the Affordable Care Act (ACA): distrust of government and opposition to the universal coverage mandate. The authors set out to elucidate the reasons for this opposition."

Our news journalists obtained a quote from the research from the University of Arizona, "This article describes how the authors used qualitative methods with semistructured interviewing as a principal investigative method to gather information from people they met while bicycling across the United States from April through July 2016. During this time, the authors conducted open-ended, semistructured conversations with people they met as they rode their bicycles from Washington, DC, to Seattle, Washington. Informants were chosen as a convenience sample. One hundred sixteen individuals participated as informants. The majority of comments were negative toward the ACA. Conversations were categorized into four themes, which included the following: (1) The ACA has increased the cost of health insurance; (2) government should not tell people what to do; (3) responsibility for ACA problems is diffuse; and (4) the ACA should not pay for other people's problems. These face-to-face conversations indicated that opposition to the ACA may be due to the fact that many Americans have experienced an increase in the cost of insurance either through increased premiums or greatly increased deductibles. They blame this increase in cost on the ACA, President Obama, the government or insurance companies, and the inclusion of 'others' in insurance plans."

According to the news editors, the research concluded: "The authors discuss how these findings can influence medical education curricula to better prepare future physicians to discuss health policy issues with patients."

For more information on this research see: Opposition to Obamacare: A Closer Look. Academic Medicine, 2017;92(9):1241-1247. Academic Medicine can be contacted at: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Two Commerce Sq, 2001 Market St, Philadelphia, PA 19103, USA. (Lippincott Williams and Wilkins - www.lww.com; Academic Medicine - journals.lww.com/academicmedicine/pages/default.aspx)

Our news journalists report that additional information may be obtained by contacting P.R. Gordon, University of Arizona, Dept. of Family & Community Med, Tucson, AZ, United States. Additional authors for this research include L. Gray, A. Hollingsworth, E.C. Shapiro and J.E. Dalen (see also Affordable Care Act).