Shaking up the Affordable Care Act could be costly to patients at area clinic

Uninsured rates have dropped significantly at health center in Cashton.

CASHTON, Wis. — At the Scenic Bluffs Community Health Center in Cashton, they’re a little afraid of going backwards.

Head of the center, Mary Freiberg worries that health care changes getting mulled in Washington could reverse the trends of increasing numbers of the poor using insurance to get preventive care.

“Eighty percent of our patients live below the federal poverty level,” she said. “A lot of the changes that are being discussed in Congress now deal with Medicaid and Affordable Care Act coverage. A lot of those things are unknown right now and those are the things that have pretty dramatic impacts for our patients.”

Under the Affordable Care Act, Freiberg has seen patients getting coverage.

“In 2013, 33 percent of our patients were considered uninsured,” she said. “In 2016, that was down to 21 percent.”

Freiberg worries those who might lose insurance under a new federal plan would stop getting preventive care – care that could keep those patients eventually out of emergency rooms for preventable health issues.