Meanwhile, the percentage without coverage—16.3 percent—was not statistically different from the rate in 2009, according to the report, “Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2010.” The Census Bureau also reported that in 2010, median household income declined and the poverty rate increased.
Last year President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, designed to extend health insurance to the uninsured. APA's Publishing Division and the Department of Government Relations (DGR) has developed a primer to help psychiatrists understand how the health reform law affects them and their patients. The primer includes articles on health care reform from Psychiatric News, the American Journal of Psychiatry, and Psychiatric Services and information prepared by DGR. The primer is posted at www.appi.org/SiteCollectionDocuments/Journals/PSY/HealthCareReform.pdf.
Read more about the provisions of the reform law in Psychiatric News at http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/content/45/7/1.2.full and http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/content/46/16/10.1.full.
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