Remember when the Democrats crowed about the fact that ObamaCare will ensure that those who couldn’t afford insurance before will now be able to afford it? Or the fact that now the poor will be able to get wellness visits when prior to the passage of ObamaCare they couldn’t?
If you buy one of the less expensive insurance plans sold through the new health law’s marketplaces, you may be in for a surprise: Some plans won’t pay for doctor visits before you meet your annual deductible, which could be thousands of dollars.
“This could be the next shoe to drop, as people don’t realize that if they’re buying a bronze plan, they may have to pay $5,000 out of pocket before it contributes a penny,” said Carl McDonald, senior analyst with Citi Investment Research, speaking at a conference last month in Washington.
…Experts are worrying that some new enrollees will be discouraged from seeing doctors if they have to pay the full charge, rather than simply a copayment. In Miami, for example, 40 percent of bronze plans require consumers to pay the full deductible before coverage kicks in, according to an analysis by online broker eHealthinsurance.com, a private online marketplace, for Kaiser Health News. The average deductible among the examined bronze plans in Miami is $5,735.
Patients in those plans who haven’t yet met their annual deductibles would have to pay the full cost of the visits, unless they were for preventive services mandated by the law. A typical office visit can run $65 to $85, while more complex visits may cost more.
Prior to ObamaCare many insurance plans covered wellness visits. Now, because ObamaCare makes the risk pool so much higher its all changed.
…The law forces people to pay higher premiums for largely unnecessary comprehensive coverage — especially the middle class — and then forces them to pay for the routine care out of pocket anyway. Health-savings accounts that might have shielded consumers from the pain are now being discouraged, which means this comes out of their checking accounts, right along with the higher premiums.
The result? People will pay more for less coverage, and then spend thousands of dollars before seeing the first dollar in benefits, except for certain preventive tests that HHS deemed mandatory. This will discourage people from getting normal wellness care and quick intervention on illnesses, forcing them to wait until they’re very sick to see a doctor. And even that might be not so bad, considering how often people fill waiting rooms for cold and flu symptoms that could easily be handled with over-the-counter treatment, but it’s not what the Obama administration and Democrats promised. And it’s certainly not “affordable care.”
The coming sticker shock is going to be huge.
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