Surprise! ObamaCare Limits Patient Choice

As the private sector begins to digest and react to ObamaCare, the loss of choice is becoming more obvious, and the mainstream media whores try to spin this as a good thing in order to save money. Get a load of the spin from the New York Times.

As the Obama administration begins to enact the new national health care law, the country’s biggest insurers are promoting affordable plans with reduced premiums that require participants to use a narrower selection of doctors or hospitals.

The plans, being tested in places like San Diego, New York and Chicago, are likely to appeal especially to small businesses that already provide insurance to their employees, but are concerned about the ever-spiraling cost of coverage.

But large employers, as well, are starting to show some interest, and insurers and consultants expect that, over time, businesses of all sizes will gravitate toward these plans in an effort to cut costs.

The tradeoff, they say, is that more Americans will be asked to pay higher prices for the privilege of choosing or keeping their own doctors if they are outside the new networks. That could come as a surprise many who remember the repeated assurances from President Obama and other officials that consumers would retain variety of health-care choices.

But, but, but Obama, Pelosi and Reid said that I could keep my current doctor if I want! What the Three Stooges did not tell you is that you might have to pay the whole tab yourself for that choice, which you could always do anyway.

Imagine that. Obama, Pelosi and Reid conning you and lying to you about the health care legislation. Get ready to stand in line or pay through the nose.

The last time health insurers and employers sought to sharply limit patients’ choice was back in the early 1990s, when insurers tried to reinvent themselves by embracing managed care. Instead of just paying doctor and hospital bills, insurers also assumed a greater role in their customers’ medical care by restricting what specialists they could see or which hospitals they could go to.

“Back in the H.M.O. days, it was tight networks, and it did save money,” said Ken Goulet, an executive vice president at WellPoint, one of the nation’s largest private health insurers, which is experimenting with re-introducing the idea in California.

The concept was largely abandoned after the consumer backlash persuaded both employers and health plans that Americans were simply not willing to sacrifice choice. Prominent officials like Mr. Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton learned to utter the word “choice” at every turn as advocates of overhauling the system.

You can already see that getting services under ObamaCare is going to be like getting your oil changed at one of those lube and go places. Pay your money, stand in line and get processed like a piece of machinery. You will be lucky to even know your doctor's name, and I bet more and more you will not even see a doctor.

And all the while the MSM will try to convince you that this is a good thing.