ACA casts quandary for the low income

Free medical clinics, such as those in Seneca and Clemson, likely won’t see their patient rolls decrease once the national health insurance law takes hold. And that’s an un-expected letdown for Vickie Thompson, the nine-year director of Rosa Clark in Seneca, which serves as Oconee’s only free clinic. “It has been very disappointing to us to learn that most of our patients will not be eligible for tax credits or cost subsidies under the Affordable Care Act,” Thompson this morning told 96.3/WGOG NEWS. Thompson finished a course to register those seeking benefits that start January 1 and had held out hope that that Medicaid eligible recipients would qualify for the ACA, even though South Carolina chose not to expand its Medicaid rolls. “The only option our patients have now is the Rosa Clark Clinic,” she said. The clinic, on Seneca’s S. Oak Street, currently numbers 3,000 thousand patients.