news.yale.edu
By Paul Goldfinger, MD, FACC
I have been skeptical about Obamacare since the law was passed. I have tried to stay clear of the politics. My concern from the start has been, “What the heck is inside that law? How will it actually work in terms of the practice of medicine?” Hardly any details were released, and it now seems that some legislators may not have read it, as indicated by all the surprised lawmakers who are currently upset about cancelled pre-existing health insurance policies.
So now that the controversy is looking past the incompetent roll-out, and assuming that insurance plans will soon be available to purchase on the exchanges, the conversation is moving to the details about the insurance policies themselves.
Naturally, if one is worried about the practice of medicine, paying attention to health insurance is essential. The President promised that we could keep our existing plans and doctors if we want, giving the impression that the ACA was essentially about the non-insured.
He also gave the impression that the insurance exchanges would give private insurance companies the chance to compete in a free enterprise marketplace. But now we see that no company can get their policies into the exchanges unless those policies are designed just the way the government demands they be. As a result, millions of people are losing their existing plans.
Evidently this aspect of the ACA is hidden somewhere inside the huge pile of papers that make up the bill. It’s just that it was kept under wraps until now when so many Americans are getting those surprise letters.
So now that people are being dropped (including nearly 1 million in New Jersey) from their existing plans, the administration defends what’s going on by saying that those pre-existing plans are “crummy” and not worth keeping in the first place. Why are we hearing this news for the first time now?
So we get to the crux of the problem: The public is too stupid to understand what one needs in an insurance policy to get quality care. But history shows us, including what happened in the ’80’s and ’90’s regarding “managed care/HMO’s,” that people do know what they need. They just have to be educated about the particulars, and the bureaucrats who are running Obamacare, have assiduously avoided telling us the truth until now, and more hidden truths will keep oozing out of the ACA as the smoke screen continues to fade.