Editor, Gazette Journal:

This letter is in response to Mr. Hicks’s recent letter to the editor regarding why Gloucester-Mathews Free Clinic will still be needed after the Affordable Care Act is implemented in 2014. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) will result in health insurance for many uninsured Virginians. However, a recent study commissioned by the McDonnell administration estimated that 289,000 Virginians with incomes ≤ 200% Federal Poverty Level would remain uninsured after ACA’s implementation.

The current capacity of Virginia’s health safety net organizations (198,000 uninsured Virginians last year) is insufficient to treat all those who will need its services after ACA implementation.

If Virginia approves to implement the Medicaid expansion program, about 50 percent of our 2,000 patients will qualify for Medicaid in 2014. But where are they to go? In August 2012, the Kaiser Family Foundation published "Study: Nearly a Third of Doctors Won’t See ...