An undercurrent in all debates about allocation of health care resources to the poor is the matter of access to and coverage of health care for immigrants, particularly low-income and undocumented ones.
Well designed and effectively implemented ACOs should help those who deliver primary care become trusted elicitors of informed patient preferences and knowledgeable coordinators of care.
When the tension between solidarity and individualism hardens into entrenched oppositional politics, attempts to widen health care coverage are stymied.
The U.S. Supreme Court upheld key provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The individual mandates and the optional Medicaid expansion will begin on January 1, 2014.
Those charged by the ACA health reform act to identify best clinical practices that are evidence-based and applicable across diverse populations can learn much from the experience of the Medicare-funded End Stage Renal Disease Program.
