Attention

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not represent our advertisers

Monday, July 28, 2014

New Health Plans' Limitations Anger Enrollees

Nancy Pippenger and Marcia Perez live thousands of miles apart but have the same complaint: Doctors who treated them last year won't take their insurance now, even though they haven't changed insurers.

"They said, 'We take the old plan, but not the new one,' " says Perez, an attorney in Palo Alto, Calif.

In Plymouth, Ind., Pippenger got similar news from her longtime orthopedic surgeon, so she shelled out $300 from her own pocket to see him.

Both women unwittingly enrolled in policies with limited networks of doctors and hospitals that provide little or no payment for care outside those networks. Such plans existed before the health law, but with its expansion of insurance, they are covering more people — and some are shrinking enrollees' options further than before. The policies' limitations have come as a surprise to some enrollees used to broader job-based coverage or to plans they held before the law took effect.

"It's totally different," said Pippenger, 57, whose new Anthem Blue Cross plan doesn't pay for any care outside its network, although the job-based Anthem plan she had last year did cover some of those costs. "Now I can't find a doctor."

More

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, if you liked your doctor, you can keep him. You must not like your doctor anymore, so now you must go see Dr. Acula.

Barack

Anonymous said...

It's just a guess but, they both probably voted for the POS who's health care laws are now sickening them.

Anonymous said...

YooHoo Mr George Mason and the others who were howling about the Hobby Lobby ruling and how it limited a woman's choice.
Where are they all now? How about these people's choices who have been limited by obamacare.
Oh I know-we won't hear a peep out of them. No integrity whatsoever. If they can't attach an agenda to something then they hide like the cowards they really are.

Anonymous said...

Those of us that did not vote for the liar do not feel sorry for you.

Anonymous said...

A few of Obama’s (and admins) comments before the law passed

• White House Web page: "Linda Douglass of the White House Office of Health Reform debunks the myth that reform will force you out of your current insurance plan or force you to change doctors. To the contrary, reform will expand your choices, not eliminate them. " (Spanish-language version.)

• White House Web page: "If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan."

• President’s weekly address, June 6, 2009: "If you like the plan you have, you can keep it. If you like the doctor you have, you can keep your doctor, too. The only change you’ll see are falling costs as our reforms take hold.

• Town hall in Green Bay, Wis., June 11, 2009: "No matter how we reform health care, I intend to keep this promise: If you like your doctor, you'll be able to keep your doctor; if you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan."

How anyone can still support this liar is mind boggling. We been reduced to a nation that consists of 47% of people who haven't a moral bone in their bodies.
The HB ruling affects such a small number of people compared to this offense so where are the mouthpieces who acted so outraged by the HL ruling.

lmclain said...

One last statement that 7:41 failed to mention...."the average American will see $2500 in SAVINGS (emphasis mine) in their health care costs.
Thomas Jefferson knew exactly what we should be doing to him and the rest of his slimy, lying, bribe-taking, alcoholic, pedophilic, and cheating cohorts.
Did that just get me on another list?