Barack Obama, July 16, 2009
“Let me be exactly clear about what health care reform means to you,” the president told residents of the Garden State. “First of all, if you’ve got health insurance, you like your doctors, you like your plan, you can keep your doctor, you can keep your plan. Nobody is talking about taking that away from you.”
(Part I here)
Seldom have more dishonest words been spoken.
July 17, 2010
Insurers Push Plans That Limit Choice of Doctor
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.
That “cost of coverage” is going to spiral beyond all predictions under the law wrought by Democrats. There is no limiting pre-existing conditions and there is no demand for self-control or accountability. This is only the beginning.
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 to many who remember the repeated assurances from President Obama and other officials that consumers would retain a variety of health-care choices.
It only comes as surprise if you are an idiot or an Obama supporter. But I repeat myself.
Many of us predicted this very scenario. It wasn’t rocket science. It’s merely the reaction of a market to its environment. Democrats have created a toxic environment for health care insurers and I have always believed that this is intentional. I believe that the destruction of private health care insurance was and is the goal of Obama and his minions in Congress.
“What this does is eliminate the Gucci doctors,” said Peter Skoda, the controller of the Haro Bicycle Corporation, a Vista, Calif., business that employs 30 people. Facing a possible 35 percent increase in its rates, Haro switched to an Aetna plan that prevents employees from seeing doctors at two medical groups affiliated with the Scripps Health system in San Diego. If employees go to one of the excluded doctors, they are responsible for paying the whole bill.
No Mr. Skoda, it’s not going to do that. It’s going to create two classes of health care, government and private. Those who cannot or will not pay for the best care available will be forced to endure national health care and those who can will seek private health care. This has already played out in Britain and the hand writing is on the walls. BTW, Skoda, who speaks so bitterly of high priced doctors, sells bikes whose prices begin at $200 and can be as high as $470.
Some might call them “Gucci bikes.”
Skoda obviously voted for Obama and his class-envy hypocrisy is painfully amusing. Sometimes people like Skoda make this too easy.
But choice — or at least choice that will not cost you — is likely to be increasingly scarce as health insurers and employers scramble to find ways of keep premiums from becoming unaffordable. Aetna, Cigna, the UnitedHealth Group and WellPoint are all trying out plans with limited networks.
See? That’s how it works, Mr. Skoda.
AMUSEMENT ALERT!
The new health care law offers some protection against plans offering overly restrictive networks, said Nancy-Ann DeParle, head of the office of health reform for the White House. Any plan sold in the exchanges will have to meet standards developed to make sure patients have enough choice of doctors and hospitals, she said.
Ms. DeParle said the goal of health reform was to make sure people retained a choice of doctors and hospitals, but also to create an environment where insurers would offer coverage that was both high quality and affordable. “What the Congress and the president tried to accomplish through reform is to transform the marketplace by building on the existing system,” she said.
Hilarious. Obama is building on the existing system in the same manner termites build on wooden structures.
Maybe we need government control of bicycle prices next. We need to eliminate those Gucci bikes.

DrJohn has been a health care professional for more than 40 years. In addition to clinical practice he has done extensive research and has published widely with over 70 original articles and abstracts in the peer-reviewed literature. DrJohn is well known in his field and has lectured on every continent except for Antarctica. He has been married to the same wonderful lady for over 45 years and has three kids- two sons, both of whom are attorneys and one daughter who is in the field of education.
DrJohn was brought up with the concept that one can do well if one is prepared to work hard but nothing in life is guaranteed.
Except for liberals being foolish.
Sorry.
Obama cannot lie.
In order to lie, you must believe something.
Obama does not believe anything.
So he cannot lie.
Whatever he says, he says at that moment. That moment is not related in any way to anything said before, and does not predict anything which will be said in the future.
What he says has only one purpose, to further his quest for the Universal Socialist State.
So when he said we can keep our doctors, that was true at that moment.
The statement was intended to solicit votes for the bill.
It will not be true when Obamacare takes effect.
You would be better advised to listen to the new health care czar, who has revealed that his principal goal is the redistribution of wealth.
It is not fair for some to have more than others. Therefore everybody must have the same.
That’s only fair.
It is not fair that some should work and get paid, while others do not work and do not get paid.
Therefore everyone gets paid the same, work or no work.
By the way, a recent news report claims that a Judge has dismissed charges against a man who claimed to have military decorations, although the man had never served. Freedom of speech, it turns out, trumps the Stolen Valor Act. Lying is constitutionally protected.