Posted on 11/21/2013 3:31:45 AM PST by markomalley
In order to contain the costs of providing health care services to higher risk consumers, insurance companies have been forced to exclude certain health care providers from the Obamacare exchanges. In particular, "pricey" academic hospitals are left out of the new health care program and some are retaliating.
Seattle Children's Hospital has filed a lawsuit against the insurance commissioner in Washington state for being excluded from the exchanges. It is unprecedented in our market to have major insurance plans exclude Seattle Childrens, said Sandy Melzer, senior vice president.
In New Hampshire, Frisbie Memorial Hospital "took legal action against an insurer that excluded it from its marketplace plans, and in Missouri, consumer advocates successfully lobbied an insurer to add a childrens hospital after it unveiled a plan that lacked one."
But insurance companies are choosing cheaper health care options over quality of care because they are forced to provide care for more patients.
For example, a pediatric appendectomy at Childrens costs about $23,000, he said. At another community hospital, the cost is closer to $14,100. Melzer said his hospital often bills more than community hospitals for comparable procedures because the children it treats are often gravely ill, so even a routine tonsillectomy may be more complicated.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
They are kids. Do we really need to save all of them? /sarc
Don’t cough up the ‘vig’ and you won’t be able to play with the big boys. It’s the ‘Chicago way’.
From someone who had their life literally saved by the hospital at Duke University just a few months ago, this is just stupid. Excluding such hospitals will create an uproar by the public about as fierce as the cancelled insurance plans. Ironically, such hospitals are in locations about as far Left as you will find.
So how many of you voted for "The un-president"?
This is what happens when inside the beltway idiots (who all think they are the smartest person in the room) are given billions of taxpayer dollars to change our free market health care system into a Washingtoon DC controlled one. Where more power and money ends up in Washingtoon DC. Where more liberals, women and affirmative action apparatchiks are hired to administer and enforce this cluster____F.
Be ready to be placed in a ghetto hospital.
Soon the others will be put out of business, the ghetto hospital will be over crowded, and we become what Britain now is with patients dying in the hall ways.
That isn’t a GOP lie Mrs. McCaskill it is a fact.
Good on Children’s!
Children’s Hospital in Seattle is one of the best hospitals for children in the country. They do an amazing job of helping kids, including those with cancer and other diseases. One of my best friends’ baby had to have brain surgery there when he was a tiny infant - - they had nothing but praise about the staff, care, etc. I can’t believe they wouldn’t be included.
As a side note, the Insurance Commish in WA is a lib and refused to participate in Obummer’s big “Fix” - -in fact, I believe he was the 1st out of the box to refuse.
I heard a caller on the radio last week saying that her doctor had been excluded from the list.
She contacted the doctor, who contacted HHS, who told him that he was not on the list and the method by which to get on the list was confidential.
Really. Hell, they produce a lot them using cheap, illegal-immigrant labor.
Kill all you want, Obamacare: we’ll make more!!!
(/sarcasm)
All of our current troubles with Obamacare are just in the sign up phase. Just wait until next year when people actually try to get healthcare. Can’t use this or that hospital or Doc cuz it’s not in the plane? Payments all screwed up by beaurocrats so I have to come up with deductible up front? And then all the group employee plans get canceled .
Ha....so try the UK NHS for a "free appendix operation
Mark Wattson, 35, from Swindon may have been the victim of botched surgery after he had to have his appendix removed twice

To his shock, surgeons from the same team told him that not only was his appendix still inside him, but it had ruptured - a potentially fatal complication.
In a second operation it was finally removed, leaving Mr Wattson fearing another organ might have been taken out during the first procedure.
The blunder has left Mr Wattson jobless, as bosses at the shop where he worked did not believe his story and sacked him.
Mr Wattson told of the moment he realised there had been a serious mistake.
'I was lying on a stretcher in terrible pain and a doctor came up to me and said that my appendix had burst,' he said.
'I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I told these people I had my appendix out just four weeks earlier but there it was on the scanner screen for all to see.
'I thought, "What the hell did they slice me open for in the first place?"
'I feel that if the surgery had been done correctly in the first place I wouldn't be in the mess I am today. I'm disgusted by the whole experience.'
Mr Wattson first went under the knife on July 7 after experiencing severe abdominal pain for several weeks. He was discharged but exactly a month later he had to dial 999 after collapsing in agony. Mr Wattson
Mr Wattson was readmitted to the Great Western Hospital in Swindon after his appendix ruptured.
And to add insult to injury HE WAS FIRED FROM HIS JOB FOR CLAIMING TWO APPENDIX OPERATIONS.
"..and the method by which to get on the list was confidential."
The only thing confidential should be any patient's health records under HIPPA (which ObamaCare violates routinely ).
It sounds like the Government is picking physicians ,health providers ,hospital centers , and patient health success on something other than providing services.
It appears that HHS is picking winners and losers , perhaps according to political persuasion ,or political contributions ?
Obviously HHS isn't concerned with Hippocratic oath :" Do NO HARM ! "
OMG.
Just ... wow.
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