That’s Exactly What Obama Wants
February 26, 2014
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Obamacare limits access to doctors. From the Los Angeles Times: “A month into the most sweeping changes to healthcare in half a century, people are having trouble finding doctors at all, getting faulty information on which ones are covered and receiving little help from insurers swamped by new business.”
Cancer patient Danielle Nelson was told by Anthem Blue Cross “half a dozen times” that her oncologists would be in the plan she picked. But when she arrived for her oncology appointment a bright orange sign said patients in California’s Obamacare exchange were not accepted. As a fan of Obamacare, she says, “I can’t imagine this is how President Obamacare wanted it to happen.”
I can. Remember when he told a watching nation that a pill for pain might be better than a pacemaker:
“But what we can do is make sure that at least some of the waste that exists in the system that's not making anybody's mom better, that is loading up on additional tests or additional drugs that the evidence shows is not necessarily going to improve care, that at least we can let doctors know, and your mom know, that you know what, maybe this isn't going to help, maybe you're better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller.
Danielle believed the hype when she should have read the small type: 2,700 pages of law. California doctors on the other hand, are calculating the cost of Obamacare’s low payments, and choosing not to participate.
The ACA is set up to ration care, including rationing access to doctors. For example, Obamacare provides more money for family doctors than specialists, even though specialty care is what saves limbs, gives new life to hearts, and extends life. It also sets up the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) to ration care and limit access to specialists by forbidding payment for certain care. The law also spends a $1 billion to conduct rationing-based “comparative effectiveness” research through the euphemistically titled “Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute.” PCORI research will inform IPAB decisions.
Danielle is experiencing the “narrow” network of Obamacare coverage, designed to make sure the price of Obamacare exchange premiums are as low as possible the next three years so people will buy this government coverage. About 70 percent of new plans under the law have narrow networks, reports the LA Times.
Covered California claims its exchange offers 58,000 physicians to choose from. But what if the doctor you need isn’t on the network’s list? What if the available specialist is so busy that you can’t get an appointment for three months? Or what if the doctor is two hours away? Or what if you and the only specialist available do not see eye to eye? What if you can’t build a trusting relationship with the only doctor you’re allowed to see?
Expect continued chaos as once-happy Obamacare recipients run into the harsh realities of the law and its disastrous limitations on care. All the more reason you and everyone you know should Refuse to Enroll in Obamacare.
Consider talking to your favorite doctors today about a cash payment arrangement!
Working with you to preserve health freedom,
Twila Brase, RN, PHN
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