Thursday, May 1, 2014

The Coming Two-Tier Health System

Wall St. Journal ^ | April 30, 2014 | Scott W. Atlas
ObamaCare is already creating one class of care for the poor and middle class and another for the affluent. One will be for the poor and middle class, and a separate system will be for those with the money or power to circumvent ObamaCare. The hidden truth is just around the corner—those more dependent on public insurance, mostly the poor and middle class, will have limited access to medical care. About one-third of primary-care physicians and one-fourth of specialists have already completely closed their practices to Medicaid patients. Over 52% of physicians have already limited the access that Medicare patients have to their practices, or are planning to, according to a 2012 survey by Merritt Hawkins for the Physicians Foundation. More doctors than ever already refuse Medicaid and Medicare due to inadequate payments for care, and that trend will only accelerate as government lowers reimbursements. At the same time, ObamaCare is squeezing out the middle class from affordable private insurance that correlates with far better disease outcomes than government insurance. By bloating coverage requirements and minimizing the consideration of risks fundamental to pricing insurance, the law has already increased premiums by 20%-200% in more than 40 states, according to a 2013 analysis by the Manhattan Institute's Avik Roy and others.
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