yep. I knew people would eventually wise up. The repugs are flocking to sign up.
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Yet, the number of uninsured is well over 30 million. One dependents, those kicked off their old polices, new adults enrolling and those signed up, but not paid, expect real numbers to go down considerable. DNC instructed candidates not to run on Obamacare.
sources has it that you lied about your age so you could get on it. 
Is it true dire?
Don't tell me you actually think this train wreck is a good idea. How many people have lost their jobs or have been reduced to part-time due to this disaster? How many have to pay higher premiums?
Your beloved Obama is well on his way to being known as the worst president in history. Move over Jimmy Carter.
Your beloved Obama is well on his way to being known as the worst president in history. Move over Jimmy Carter.
Check the real numbers, not Fox numbers.
If the next 3 go like the past 5, he will go down as one of the best
Originally Posted by jtdavis:
Check the real numbers, not Fox numbers.
If the next 3 go like the past 5, he will go down as one of the best
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That may be the dumbest statement made on here in a very long time. You are either a complete idiot or just not paying attention. Moron.
I am paying attention to events, not Fox. That is why I made that statement.
Daddy joe, have you ever noticed current events? Apparently not.
Originally Posted by jtdavis:
Your beloved Obama is well on his way to being known as the worst president in history. Move over Jimmy Carter.
Check the real numbers, not Fox numbers.
If the next 3 go like the past 5, he will go down as one of the best
I want some of what your smoking.
I'm sure as more and more people are kicked off their insurance morea nd more will find their way into Obamacare. Good luck to you if you if you need to use it.
Use what Chuck? Obamacare? You do understand that those who sign up through the market place are getting policies with BCBS and Humana here in Alabama, right? The policies are no different than the ones you buy independently. The only thing the ACA did was make laws that enables more Americans to get and keep healthcare, in part by not allowing insurance companies to kick people out just because they got sick, and ending the lifetime limits, and helping those that can't afford the premiums by giving them tax credits or subsidies.
Can you explain what you mean by your statement of "Good luck to you if you need to use it." ?
Sounds like yo really don't even know what Obamacare/ACA is. Just so you understand, you are using it...its a law.
I'm about to use my new BCBS policy on the 12th of this month. The "gee, I sure hope I don't die" plan just wasn't cutting it the past five years.
Originally Posted by Jankinonya:
Use what Chuck? Obamacare? You do understand that those who sign up through the market place are getting policies with BCBS and Humana here in Alabama, right? The policies are no different than the ones you buy independently. The only thing the ACA did was make laws that enables more Americans to get and keep healthcare, in part by not allowing insurance companies to kick people out just because they got sick, and ending the lifetime limits, and helping those that can't afford the premiums by giving them tax credits or subsidies.
Can you explain what you mean by your statement of "Good luck to you if you need to use it." ?
Sounds like yo really don't even know what Obamacare/ACA is. Just so you understand, you are using it...its a law.
Nationally the marketplaces offer tens of thousands of different policies with a wide variety of coverage, but Harte has noticed many have one thing in common: They cover a narrow network of doctors and hospitals.
Obamacare sign-up more than a phone call away
That narrower network comes as particularly bad news for the residents of Concord, New Hampshire.
Concord's one hospital won't accept any policies offered by the marketplaces. To see a doctor, specialist or primary care provider affiliated with the hospital, patients on these Obamacare plans will have to pay out of their own pocket. The closest in-network hospital is in Manchester.
"Can you imagine having to go 25 miles away to Manchester to get access to a health care provider that is covered by your insurance?" Harte asked. "Right now, Concord is one big black hole of health care for people buying these plans."
HealthCaregov: What works, what doesn't
And it's not just Concord. Nationally, consumers are learning a number of well-known hospitals won't accept insurance offered through the marketplaces.
In New York, NYU will accept only a minority of the plans. In Los Angeles, UCLA medical centers will accept a couple. In Atlanta,Emory has limited the number of plans it will take. Academic medical centers are often pricier because they tackle the more complex cases.
WellPoint, a Blue Cross Blue Shield insurer offering policies in 14 states, is narrowing its networks in many markets after research showed consumers care more about the price than the provider.
A survey done by PriceWaterhouse Cooper found that 43% of those surveyed considered the cost of the policy the most important factor when they pick a health insurance plan.
Those signing up for private health care coverage on the ObamaCare exchanges may be in for an unpleasant surprise -- they'll have insurance, but they might have trouble getting the doctor to see them.
As hundreds of thousands enroll for coverage beginning Jan. 1, analysts are warning that the plans are likely to give them access to fewer doctors and hospitals. So much so, they warn, that the system could begin to resemble Medicaid, the health care program for low-income Americans.
"Indeed, I think this will eventually be like Medicaid," said Merrill Matthews, director of the Council for Affordable Health Insurance.
Matthews said the only way many insurers are going to be able to control costs is by "simply clamping down on the amount they are willing to pay."
Just as with Medicaid, analysts warn that if payments get too low, many doctors might start refusing to see patients. That will leave more and more patients jockeying to see fewer and fewer doctors.
They emphasize, then, that having health insurance won't necessarily translate into access to health care.
"About half of the physicians in many communities refuse to take Medicaid patients because the payment system is just too low," said James Capretta, of the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
Doug Holtz-Eakin, former director of the Congressional Budget Office, suggested some of the plans on the exchanges are going in the same direction.
"If you look at something where you get a dollar by treating a private payer, you get about 70 cents out of Medicare for that same treatment, you get about 55 cents out of Medicaid for that," he said.
He added: "You know, ObamCare started to look like Medicaid of the future, and in the Medicaid in the present, you can have the insurance but a doctor won't see you."
By the end of March, the Obama administration hopes to increase the number of people on Medicaid by 9 million, and the number in private plans by 7 million. New Medicaid enrollments so far have far outpaced enrollments in private plans on the exchanges.
But since Medicaid patients already have access to relatively few doctors, expanding that population while opening the door to lower payments for private insurance raises the prospect of rationing, as too many people chase too few doctors.
As hundreds of thousands of Americans shop for health insurance plans on the new online marketplaces, they’re finding that many insurers have limited their choice of physicians and hospitals.
Locally, that’s translated into a smattering of new insurance offerings that leave out top hospitals and doctors, an Enquirer analysis of local plans on the marketplaces reveals.
Find the latest ACA news at Daily Dose
The Christ Hospital, for example, is currently covered by just two of the seven insurers selling plans on Ohio’s online marketplace,HealthCare.gov. Consumers across the region who buy marketplace plans from Humana or Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield – two of the largest insurers in the Tristate – won’t be covered for care at Mercy Health, which has the most hospitals locally, or UC Health, which has the region’s only Level 1 adult trauma center.
Executives at each of the region’s biggest hospital groups say conversations are still underway with insurers – even though consumers have just 14 days to obtain coverage to go into effect by Jan. 1.
“It’s a system-by-system analysis,” said Tim Maloney, vice president of payor relations at UC Health. “Hopefully, people who look to the exchange will be aware that most of the networks are narrow and they will be able to consider whether their provider is included.”
The vast majority of exchange plans won’t allow access to many doctors and hospitals you prefer. Many plans exclude the top-drawer academic hospitals, like Cedars-Sinai in LA, the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota and New York Presbyterian here in the city.
Instead, the law requires exchange plans to cover care at “essential community providers . . . that serve predominantly low-income, medically underserved individuals” [Sec. 1311c(1)C]. That means clinics, public hospitals and hospitals largely serving the Medicaid community.
You seemed to miss this part of the article you quoted.
But the picture isn't all bleak.
"Some coverage is better than no coverage," said Karen Davis, an economist and professor of health policy at Johns Hopkins University.
Davis gives the ACA marketplaces high marks overall since it is a lot easier to compare plans in these marketplaces than when consumers were buying insurance on their own. With the standardized essential benefits offered by all plans, "you can be a little bit more assured that Plan A and Plan B will provide decent coverage."
"We're going to get better benefits in this market," said Jonathan Gruber, an economist at MIT who was an architect on both the Massachusetts and U.S. health plans.
"Right now, in this insurance market, not only is it discriminatory, but the typical person with an individual-payer plan has a very weak insurance plan. ... It's not real insurance. We're going to get rid of that -- everyone will have guaranteed, real insurance."
Obamacare open enrollment: Here's everything you need to know
In the case of Concord Hospital, the CEO and president wrote a letter to the local newspaper explaining that his hospital wasn't opting out of Obamacare as a "political statement." Instead, Michael B. Green blamed Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, the state exchange's only provider, for being "unwilling to negotiate sustainable contract terms."
The hospital, he wrote, would be "paid less than what it costs us to provide care," and said his advisers told him the facility should be cautious about "committing to rates that could be detrimental to one's organization."
Heather Tralla or Northridge enrolled in a Blue Shield-subsidized Covered California plan — the “Enhanced PPO Covered California” plan — last fall. She has multiple sclerosis and, in mid-January, a doctor referred her for two MRIs. Tralla said she logged into her account with Blue Shield to look up facilities that would accept her insurance.
She then spent more than two weeks trying to find a provider. While her online account showed many facilities, when she called the offices all said they did not accept Covered California insurance. They said they would accept the “Enhanced PPO” plan from Blue Shield, but not the “Covered California” version. She said supervisors she spoke to at Blue Shield initially told her that the two plans have the same network — then others told her they have different networks.
Ultimately, Tralla called one of the MRI providers so many times that the office finally called her in early February to say that the provider had signed a contract that day to accept the Covered California plan. She had her two MRIs late last week.
I contacted Steve Shivinsky, a spokesman for Blue Shield, who told me the networks for their “Enhanced PPO” plans are the same. “It doesn’t matter if you purchase (the plan) on or off the exchange,” he said via email.
But that has clearly not been Tralla’s experience. “I got my MRI taken care of,” she said. “But what’s going to happen the next time?”
Insurance companies are the problem in that area. Not the ACA. I personally would be happy to see the government set amounts and regulate healthcare cost. You know, a single payer insurance, or universal healthcare. That would fix this problem.
Maybe you don't like that idea. Maybe you would prefer to have the insurance companies and hospitals to continue to fleece Americans while making huge profits on peoples health. Life and death should not be a profit making business. Don't cha think?
Originally Posted by Chuck Farley:
Heather Tralla or Northridge enrolled in a Blue Shield-subsidized Covered California plan — the “Enhanced PPO Covered California” plan — last fall. She has multiple sclerosis and, in mid-January, a doctor referred her for two MRIs. Tralla said she logged into her account with Blue Shield to look up facilities that would accept her insurance.
She then spent more than two weeks trying to find a provider. While her online account showed many facilities, when she called the offices all said they did not accept Covered California insurance. They said they would accept the “Enhanced PPO” plan from Blue Shield, but not the “Covered California” version. She said supervisors she spoke to at Blue Shield initially told her that the two plans have the same network — then others told her they have different networks.
Ultimately, Tralla called one of the MRI providers so many times that the office finally called her in early February to say that the provider had signed a contract that day to accept the Covered California plan. She had her two MRIs late last week.
I contacted Steve Shivinsky, a spokesman for Blue Shield, who told me the networks for their “Enhanced PPO” plans are the same. “It doesn’t matter if you purchase (the plan) on or off the exchange,” he said via email.
But that has clearly not been Tralla’s experience. “I got my MRI taken care of,” she said. “But what’s going to happen the next time?”
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I bought my plan independently and I recently had the same problem. The Doctors office was listed as in network that accepted my plan. When I called they said they didn't. It took my BCBS representative calling before it was straightened out.
Once again, the insurance companies and the Dr office were the problem, not Obamacare. So whats you point?
"Instead, the law requires exchange plans to cover care at “essential community providers . . . that serve predominantly low-income, medically underserved individuals” [Sec. 1311c(1)C]. That means clinics, public hospitals and hospitals largely serving the Medicaid community."
You wouldn't be capable of seeing my point but I think most of America will.
I completely understand that statement. I'm not sure that you do. If it is a public facility, that means that it receives Federal funds. If a clinic, or hospital receives federal funds then it is regulated in the amounts it can charge for services. It is also required to accept ALL patients regardless of their ability to pay.
That is also the reason that they are required to accept all Medicaid and Medicare patients.
Do you understand?
That means if you have one of these plans you won't get the best care. Sort of like housing if you depend on the government. Sure you'll get housing, PUBLIC housing. How's that sound?
Medicaid level care is, sadly, "substandard" to use the president's word. A review of the experiences of nearly 900,000 patients undergoing eight different surgical procedures found that Medicaid patients were 50 percent more likely to die in the hospital after surgery than patients with private coverage. This review, by researchers at the University of Virginia, is one of several studies proving that Medicaid patients get worse care than patients with private insurance.
But many of the plans being offered on the exchanges are Medicaid with a private label slapped on them. The McKinsey Center for U.S. Health System Reform reports that Medicaid insurers are playing a large role in the exchanges.
Just as many doctors refuse to accept Medicaid, they are also refusing to accept exchange insurance. In California, a Blue Cross plan on the exchange covers 47 percent fewer doctors than Blue Cross subscribers in California currently get.
chuzel, you are always on your journey away from the truth. You can't help it can you? It's a shortcoming you constantly have to deal with. The rest of the world is laughing and passing you by. You will always be a miserable repug digging for so dirt at some corrupt source frequented by numbskulls that believe anything some nut says. We the informed elite don't believe any of this hourshipt you publish so stop wasting your time thinking we do.