Free Republic

WASHINGTON — Many doctors are disturbed that they’ll be paid less – often a lot less – to care for the millions of patients who are projected to buy coverage through the health law’s new insurance marketplaces. Some have complained to medical associations – including those in Texas, California, Georgia, Connecticut and New York – saying the discounted rates could lead to a two-tiered system in which fewer doctors participate, perhaps making it harder for consumers to get the care they need. “As it is, there is a shortage of primary care physicians in the country, and they don’t have...

As Americans have begun shopping for health plans on the insurance exchanges, they are discovering that insurers are restricting their choice of doctors and hospitals in order to keep costs low, and that many of the plans exclude top-rated hospitals. The Obama administration made it a priority to keep down the cost of insurance on the exchanges, the online marketplaces that are central to the Affordable Care Act. But one way that insurers have been able to offer lower rates is by creating networks that are far smaller than what most Americans are accustomed to. The decisions have provoked a...

If there were any shreds of hope left that the stunning decline of the middle class could be turned around, Obamacare has absolutely destroyed them. Over the past decade or so, the middle class in the United States has been absolutely eviscerated. The number of working age Americans without a job has increased by 27 million since the year 2000, median household income in the U.S. has fallen for five years in a row, and the poverty numbers in this country are spiraling out of control. And now here comes Obamacare. As you will see below, Obamacare is causing millions...

Consumers have suffered sticker shock when they try to enroll in Obamacare's health insurance exchanges, but soon those same consumers may be faced with far fewer choices of doctors and hospitals.Insurance companies that participate in the exchanges say they have to narrow consumers' choice of health care providers to keep medical costs and premiums from soaring even higher than they already have."What we are trying to do is create better price points," an official with the insurer WellPoint told the Washington Examiner. "Something that will be very attractive to consumers across the board. So, we are narrowing and focusing" the...

Let the blame game begin over ObamaCare’s oversights. The nation’s largest health insurer, UnitedHealthcare, claims the Affordable Care Act is responsible for forcing it to boot doctors from its Medicare Advantage program that serves thousands of elderly patients in the New York metro region. CEO Jack Larsen, under fire for separating seniors from their MDs, took out full-page ads to explain that cuts in Medicare spending forced the ­insurer’s hand. “We are working to collaborate with a more focused network of physicians to help us provide higher quality and more affordable health care coverage to meet the needs of our...

Tucked inside nearly 11,000 pages of the Affordable Care Act is a little-known provision that doles out three months of free health care to individuals who choose to default on their premiums .People who receive the federal subsidy to be part of Obamacare will be allowed to incur a three-month “grace period” if they can’t pay their premiums and then simply cancel their policies, stiffing the doctors and hospitals. Their only repercussion is that they have to wait until the following year’s open enrollment if they want coverage on the exchange. “It will help break the system,” said Rep. Louie...

Let the blame game begin over ObamaCare’s oversights. The nation’s largest health insurer, UnitedHealthcare, claims the Affordable Care Act is responsible for forcing it to boot doctors from its Medicare Advantage program that serves thousands of elderly patients in the New York metro region. CEO Jack Larsen, under fire for separating seniors from their MDs, took out full-page ads to explain that cuts in Medicare spending forced the ­insurer’s hand.

Practicing physicians like orthopedic surgeon Dr. Robert Nirschl, who have watched politicians and health policy for decades, are experiencing first-hand the effects of Obamacare — something Nirschl calls “absolutely insanity.”“It is in fact socialized medicine, and the other issue is, of course, this is a huge transference of productive wealth,” the Washington, D.C.-area doctor said.He opposes the law for two primary reasons: 1) Americans are losing the insurance they had before, and 2) doctors must comply with a morass of paperwork requirements that adds no value to the doctor-patient relationship.“The patient is stuck two ways,” Nirschl said. “Number one, the...

OBAMA: So, the majority of folks will end up being better off, of course, because the website's not working right. They don’t necessarily know it right [now]. But, even though it's a small percentage of folks who may be disadvantaged, you know, it means a lot to them. And it's scary to them...

obamacare doc performs surgery (you may have to copy and paste the link) https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10202129812517526&set=vb.1554566660&type=2&theaterUnbelieveable

A doctor shortage is threatening to make the roll-out of the Affordable Care Act even more difficult — and it could create lines for care and services. New Yorkers are notorious for wanting things immediately, and that includes medical care. But even doctors who support Obamacare say there could be delays due to more patients and fewer doctors, CBS 2’s Dick Brennan reported Monday.

In July, Coach is Right reported that the Affordable Care Act saw to it that the nation’s best, doctor-owned hospitals would be forced to close. And now it appears that the favor is being returned as most of the nation’s top commercial hospitals will either refuse to accept ObamaCare patients, or “…accept insurance from just one or two companies operating under Obamacare.” (1) It seems Kathleen Sebelius’ Health and Human Services Department went too strong in demanding insurance companies participating in ObamaCare cap their premiums. After all, prospective insureds must be able to afford premiums on the policies Obamacare is...

Could Virginia Start Forcing MD's to Accept Medicare & Medicaid Patients? by Kerry Picket 3 Nov 2013 Kathleen Murphy, a Democrat who is running for the House of Delegates against Republican incumbent Barbara Comstock, told a forum in Great Falls on Saturday that doctors should be forced to accept Medicare and Medicaid patients: FYI last night at the Great Falls Grange debate, Democrat delegate candidate Kathleen Murphy said that since many doctors are not accepting medicaid and medicare patients, she advocates making it a legal requirement for those people to be accepted.....

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — A doctor shortage is threatening to make the roll-out of the Affordable Care Act even more difficult — and it could create lines for care and services. New Yorkers are notorious for wanting things immediately, and that includes medical care.

With Obamacare shaping up as a public policy disaster that is the equivalent of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, the Hindenburg, the Bay of Pigs, and Desert One combined, perhaps we should go back and take in Ronald Reagan’s warning about this back in 1961.  Reagan said that socializing health care would require socializing the patients, and voila, we have Obamacare canceling insurance plans previously agreed to between consenting adults.But Reagan also warned that doctors would come to be regulated, too: Today, the relationship between patient and doctor in this country is something to be envied any place. The privacy, the...

I had great cancer doctors and health insurance.My plan was cancelled. Now I worry how long I'll live. Everyone now is clamoring about Affordable Care Act winners and losers. I am one of the losers. My grievance is not political; all my energies are directed to enjoying life and staying alive, and I have no time for politics. For almost seven years I have fought and survived stage-4 gallbladder cancer, with a five-year survival rate of less than 2% after diagnosis. I am a determined fighter and extremely lucky. But this luck may have just run out: My affordable, lifesaving...

The Obama Administration has been claiming that insurance companies will be competing for your dollars under the Affordable Care Act, but apparently they haven't surveyed the nation's top hospitals. Americans who sign up for Obamacare will be getting a big surprise if they expect to access premium health care that may have been previously covered under their personal policies. Most of the top hospitals will accept insurance from just one or two companies operating under Obamacare. "This doesn't surprise me," said Gail Wilensky, Medicare advisor for the second Bush Administration and senior fellow for Project HOPE. "There has been an...

Free Market Alert! Many medical practitioners have apparently simply had enough. Instead of continuing their never-ending struggle with the welfare state's red tape, they have decided to revert to a free market model without insurance. At first glance that seems to represent a barrier to obtaining medical care for poorer strata of the population. However, a second glance reveals that this might actually not be the case. No doubt to the great dismay of the sick-care cartel and the bureaucracy administering it, the refreshing breeze of the free market suddenly intruding upon the system shows what prices actually would be...

Some Republicans, including Sen. Ted Cruz, have argued that if ObamaCare goes through, an entire group of people will want and like the services offered, thus creating a new dependent culture of people hooked on the supposedly universal and free medical care being offered. Hence, any chances of repealing or reversing it in the future will be doomed. The events of the previous week have shown that this is an unfounded fear. More likely is that the inherent flaws in ObamCare, now more apparent than ever, will create a groundswell of public opinion demanding either its delay or a movement...

<p>Dr. Nicholas DiNubile, a Philadelphia orthopedic surgeon, has a timely reminder for everyone encountering the federal health-care-exchange meltdown: “If you think signing up for Obamacare is a nightmare, ask your doctor how the EMR mandate is going.”</p> <p>Bingo.</p> <p>The White House finally acknowledged the spectacular public disaster of Obamacare’s Internet exchange infrastructure during Monday’s Rose Garden infomercial. But President ShamWow and his sales team are AWOL on the bureaucratic ravages of the federal electronic-medical-records mandate.</p>