CNN Breaking: Only 26,794 people completed enrollment through healthcare.gov

[DocM]

Because it has been hurting access to care due to physicians & institution opting out rather than deal with the Romneycare bureaucracy and its (predictably) low reimbursement rates. Can't expect them to treat people at a loss or with 6 month payment delays forever, which is why even before Obamacare caregivers would opt. out of Medicare and Medicaid.

This is already playing out under Obamacare as institutions opt out of seeing patients with exchange insurances. It will increase, resulting in long appointment delays and very limited physician choices - especially for specialists.

Detroit News, referring to Romneycare as an Obamacare predictor....

http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20131029/OPINION01/310290010

>

Meanwhile, (note: under Romneycare) access to health care has declined.

If Romneycare predicted Obamacare?s high costs, it warns of worse: growing physician shortages as regulations drive caregivers from the market. A 2011 survey ?by the Massachusetts Medical Society reveals that fewer than half of the state?s primary care practices are accepting new patients, down from 70 percent in 2007,? reports Anne-Marie Turner, president of the Galen Institute. ?The average wait time for a routine checkup with an internist is 48 days. It takes 41 days to see an OB/GYN, up from 34? in one year.

This doctor shortage, driven by poor government reimbursement for health services, also has increased hospital emergency room visits, contradicting Obama?s ? and Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder?s ? claim that Medicaid expansion will reduce uncompensated care. Just 53 percent of internists and 62 percent of family physicians, for example, will see Massachusetts Medicaid patients.

?Insurance rates have continued to increase with more mandates like fertility coverage,? says Paul Bachman, director of research for Boston?s Beacon Hill Institute. ?So now the governor has approved price controls that dictate that health costs can?t increase more than inflation.? That means more doctor shortages.

As Romneycare shows, the future does not fulfill John Dingell?s promise. The Affordable Care Act is unaffordable.

[spenser.d]

US will be de-facto example of how not to do healthcare.

The US already was (and still is) the de-facto example of how not to do healthcare before the ACA.

[Anibal P]

 

You're only waiting because you didn't understand what the statement was, and are woefully uninformed.

 

You were never told that your premium would go down $2500, but that you'd be saved $2500 through the slowed pace of the growth in prices. It's simple accounting, and it's right on track for Obama's last year in office.

 

 

Problem is that insurance rates have GONE UP across the board, so any "savings" might put some back where they were before the Democrats screwed up health care, and that is a total loss for many

Only Democrats and loons would somehow see savings when to most prices will still be higher than before 

[Torolol]

Whatever your anecdotal evidence is, prices rose for those in employer plans by 4-5% over the last year. Overall, prices grew at the slowest rate in 50 years. Those are the facts.

Price rise is price rise, no matter how you cut it, and certainly is the opposite direction of being more 'affordable' isn't it?

[123456789A]

No they haven't. And in hindsight the view is very different.

A major new 2014 congressional preference poll by Quinnipiac Univ. (highly respected) shows the GOP has erased a 9 point Democrat advantage and is now tied with them at 39% to 39%. This in spite of a 6% Democrat over-sample.

The ObamaCare backlash has begun.

https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1187827-gop-erases-democrat-lead-in-congressional-poll/?view=getnewpost

 

I don't trust polls anymore. Polls were saying Romney was going to be elected and Obama was doomed because he slept through his debates.

[thomastmc]

Problem is that insurance rates have GONE UP across the board, so any "savings" might put some back where they were before the Democrats screwed up health care, and that is a total loss for many

Only Democrats and loons would somehow see savings when to most prices will still be higher than before

Price rise is price rise, no matter how you cut it.

It's these kind of arguments that make me think education is the most important issue facing America, not health care :)

[thomastmc]

Because it has been hurting access to care due to physicians & institution opting out rather than deal with the Romneycare bureaucracy and its (predictably) low reimbursement rates. Can't expect them to treat people at a loss or with 6 month payment delays forever, which is why even before Obamacare caregivers would opt. out of Medicare and Medicaid.

This is already playing out under Obamacare as institutions opt out of seeing patients with exchange insurances. It will increase, resulting in long appointment delays and very limited physician choices - especially for specialists.

Detroit News, referring to Romneycare as an Obamacare predictor....

http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20131029/OPINION01/310290010

Medicaid is run by the states, and Medicare is run by the federal government. Medicaid varies state to state.

So the people that had no health care before because they make less than $15,900 a year and couldn't afford it will not have the absolute best options... It's still a hell of a lot better than nothing though.

[DocM]

Medicaid is a joint program, with the Feds paying most according to a given states formula called the Federal Medical Assistance Percentage (FMAP) - so their funding woes & foibles effect both programs.

[bguy_1986]

Obamacare isn't the answer, Romneycare isn't the answer.  I don't have an answer, and the yoyo's in we have in Congress aren't going to come up with a good answer either.  I think we'd be better off the way were were (with some changes)...  Let private companies handle it but be smarter about regulations and how we tax it all.  Regulations are made to help people, but they don't always look at what it does to the businesses (and how they will trickle it down to the insured's).

[Growled Member]

I agree with you on Medicare. Medicare has been bilked for decades, ask Ross Perot, though affiliation does not matter here.

 

It has, but so has every insurance. That's the reason things are out of control, the greed in the medical profession.

[PGHammer]

It has, but so has every insurance. That's the reason things are out of control, the greed in the medical profession.

Greed?  Do you have any IDEA what a doctor (or nurse, for that matter) has to spend on their education?

 

Registered nurses - at minimum - have four years of education to sweat through (that doesn't count specialization, such as psychiatric nursing), then they have a licensing exam (at the state level).  Remember, that's the floor.

 

Nurse-practitioners, let alone full MDs, or specialized nurses (I mentioned psychiatric nurses earlier) have longer runs - up to ten years for some specialties (even in-demand ones like psychiatry or gerontology).  It's not cheap - a typical NURSE starts their careers nearly six figures in debt merely due to student loans - figure nearly $200,000 for nurse-practitioners or MDs (and I'm talking general practice for both - specialization has a taller debt load due to taller education requirements).

 

Yes - there ARE programs that offer near-full-ride or completely full-ride scholarships (in the United States - the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps is one, and the military's Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences is another); however, both require you to pay it back in sweat equity (a commitment to serve a certain number of years in particular capacities).  C. Everett Koop was respected as a Surgeon General because he was in the Commissioned Corps before - not exactly typical for a Surgeon General.  (No - it's NOT a requirement that you serve in the PHSCC before being nominated as Surgeon General; other than Koop, only Jocelyn Elders had served in the PHSCC before becoming Surgeon General.)

 

NO professional - in ANY profession - wants to be trapped under a mountain of debt forever; therefore, why would doctors OR nurses be any different in that respect (than electrical engineers, or any other sort of engineers, for that matter)?

[Torolol]

^and that beg another question, did medical educations have to be THAT expensive in first place?

[Growled Member]

Greed?  Do you have any IDEA what a doctor (or nurse, for that matter) has to spend on their education?

 

Yes, I do. I have several members of my family in the medical profession. It is an expensive affair, I agree. Most people in the medical profession are hardworking, caring people. That doesn't stop some/many medical employers from milking the government and insurance for every dime they can wring out, some even flat out lying about services rendered. That doesn't stop most hospitals from charging twice what they should, and some even billing the patients for huge amounts even after insurance has paid. That doesn't stop the drug companies from charging two prices for much needed medicines. My family members in the medical profession see it all happening every day, and are disgusted by it.