Posted on 11/03/2013 5:32:08 PM PST by Hojczyk
O bamacare has a new message to seniors: Take two aspirins and find yourself a new doctor in the morning.
Just ask 84-year-old Dorothy Gaillard, a retired book binder and a patient of my father, primary care physician, for more than two decades.
Gaillard could easily find a doctor near her Queens home, but she dutifully makes a 45-minute schlep to my father’s office for uniquely personal care. He takes her blood pressure himself and even schedules her next appointment, tasks that most doctors shunt off to assistants.
Last Saturday, Gaillard called my father, aghast about a letter she had just received from the Medicare Advantage program of UnitedHealthcare.
Gaillard, one of close to 900,000 aged New Yorkers covered by Medicare Advantage, was informed that my father’s contract was being terminated effective Jan. 1; she would need to find another doctor.
“I couldn’t believe it,” she recalled. “Something ain’t right.”
That something is Obamacare. Due to reductions in funding under the law, the Medicare Advantage programs, in which Medicare provides money for private insurers to cover seniors, have quietly started to cancel the contracts of providers to save money.
Although there was much attention last week to the fact that many health insurance plans purchased on the individual market will be cancelled under Obamacare, the havoc it is wrecking on Medicare Advantage patients and their providers has been barely noticed.
Yet this is exactly what critics of the program have warned, even as its slavish defenders vehemently denied any coming ill effects.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) was pooh-poohed after he said this August that “the chances are that soon [seniors] will open up the mail to the bad news that your Medicare Advantage . . . has been changed in a negative way for you because of Obamacare.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nydailynews.com ...
If this gets around the RATS will freak out….
Death by death panel.
I would hope that AARP gets killed for supporting O’care.
As planned by Chicago Rahm’s dirtbag brother, Chicago Zeke.
From the article
Nationwide, UnitedHealthcare is canceling 10-15% of its contracts with Medicare Advantage providers.
Back to my father, Herbert Gahr. He voted twice for Barack Obama, and now feels the President has betrayed him. He thought the government health-care program would bring him more patients, not snatch away those already under his care.
The classic adage about good health is “an apple a day keeps the doctor away.”
Elderly New Yorkers beware: The federal Leviathan that is Obamacare is devouring apples; it could soon make your favorite doctor stay away for good.
I agree but doubt if they will be badly hurt.
“One point not mentioned: If people are spending thousands of dollars more on healthcare premiums they are going to have less to spend on consumer goods, which will be another blow to an already weak economy.
Senator Cruz looks like Nostradamus.”
“”I would hope that AARP gets killed for supporting O’care.””
Same here - they ARE United Health Care as I understand it.
I personally can’t see a any insurance carrier notifying the patients of certain doctors that their doctor will not be under contract to them in another year. It would be a much simpler task to let the doctor notify the patients as there would be fewer doctors for the carrier to notify than the number of people they insured. At least, that’s the way I see it.
We received notification from Coventry Advantra that the coverage we had for 2013 will not be written in 2014 but there’s no shortage of other Medicare Advantage policies with Coventry or other companies available online and I’m still reviewing our options.
I could take an early retirement in Jan when I reach 62, but I won’t because of the Obamacare fiasco. Probably have to work til I’m 66.
Conservatives who opposed Obama care need to be in front of the cameras 24X7 saying, “I told you so.”
“Senator Cruz looks like Nostradamus.”
Without the strange rhymes and double, triple and quadruple meanings.
When Obamacare began forcing its implementation upon medical device companies, the maker must now wait until the pacemaker is nearly broke before it can be replaced.
Which means that my father could die needlessly.
I think this piece exaggerates the situat
ion immensely
United has decided to selectively and I suppose strategically abandon parts of the market. I have a similar but different United experience.
The group where my primary care and some specialists reside fired United. United Medicare Advantage policies are not accepted.
Not to worry..... they accept about 6 Advantage plans offered by
humana and BCBS. My task is to go on line and find which is best
I have been with United since it seems forever and they are first rate
I had no idea that Medicare was being affected.
Nonsense. It’s really the Republicans who want to throw Granny off the cliff, right? We know that. Mitt Romney proved that by strapping his dog to his car roof. If he’d do that to his dog, what does that say about him doing that (or much worse) to his grandmother? Therefore, by simple logic, this can only be the work of Republicans who are FORCING the Democrats (who we know are for the little guy and old people and gay people and single mother transgendered illegal immigrants) to do things the way they and the Koch Bros. want. George Bush’s great-great uncle, Halliburton Bush, it turns out, was a closet homosexual and racist slaveowner and unfortunately, we are still living with his legacy.
$716 billion from Medicare in the next ten years to pay for Obamacare.
Humana tried sending out letters to everyone telling them this was going to happen either last year or two years ago and were forced to “stop spreading lies” by BO’s administration. I’m not sure why seniors on Medicare replacement policies thought they were be treated any better than anyone else who had non-government provided insurance.
AARP will unfortunately likely be fine. They provide secondary coverage for people who have Medicare and will probably end up being the only company who is allowed to provide secondary coverage.
.... Well ..... In the mean time .... because of a lack of the financial backbone block of the young healthy people as signatories into the system of Obama-Care ..... If a senior citizen falls into the need for serious help from the system ..... they will simply be moved into palliative care for the common good of the people thus removing them as a drain to the system.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.