Unable to Meet the Deductible or the Doctor (Gee Wiz)
By ABBY GOODNOUGH and ROBERT PEAROCT. 17, 2014
Patricia Wanderlich got insurance through the Affordable Care Act this year, and with good reason: She suffered a brain hemorrhage in 2011, spending weeks in a hospital intensive care unit, and has a second, smaller aneurysm that needs monitoring.
But her new plan has a $6,000 annual deductible, meaning that Ms. Wanderlich, who works part time at a landscaping company outside Chicago, has to pay for most of her medical services up to that amount. She is skipping this year’s brain scan and hoping for the best.
On its one-year anniversary, ObamaCare gets an ‘F’ By Michael D. Tanner September 28, 2014 | 12:00am
This Wednesday will mark one year since enrollment in ObamaCare began. What began with the disastrous rollout of healthcare.gov has ended with the health law’s supporters claiming victory.
It is true that some of the worst predictions have not yet come true. Yet. But in the last year we’ve also seen plenty of bad news for consumers, providers, employers and taxpayers.
A report card:
The Uninsured:Earlier this month, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services director Marilyn Tavenner testified that roughly 7.3 million people signed up for insurance through the exchanges. That’s down from early estimates of 8.1 million, because nearly 800,000 of those who initially enrolled have stopped or never paid their premiums. A bigger question is how many enrollees were previously insured and were just changing plans. Overall, the best estimates suggest that roughly 8 million people gained insurance under ObamaCare, but roughly half of those were enrolled in Medicaid (outside of the exchanges), which isn’t really health-care reform so much as adding people to government welfare. And it still leaves 41 million American adults uninsured. We spent billions to move the needle a tick. Grade: C
Your Plan : Despite the president’s assurances to the contrary, roughly 6 million Americans were kicked off their insurance because their plans failed to offer a lengthy-enough maternity stay, didn’t provide sufficient drug and alcohol rehabilitation benefits or otherwise fell short of the insurance that federal bureaucrats thought that they should have. This includes more than 100,000 New Yorkers. Nearly all eventually found other insurance, but a new study from the National Center for Public Policy Research found that, on average, ObamaCare plans were worse than the plans they replaced, in terms of both providers covered and cost-sharing. A new wave of cancellations is about to begin as well. Those New Yorkers who managed to renew their noncompliant plans prior to the effective start date for ObamaCare last year should start receiving cancellation notices any day now. Some people may not even be able to keep the plans that replaced the plans they couldn’t keep the first time. In several states, insurers have dropped plans that they offered on the exchanges or even withdrawn from the market altogether. And if that was not bad enough, Americans with employer-based insurance may find out their insurance has to be changed starting next year. Grade: F
Premiums: If judged against President Obama’s promise that health-care reform would save us all at least $2,500 through lower premiums, ObamaCare deserves an F. But premium increases have been less bad than expected, especially in states like New York that already had highly regulated insurance markets. Last year, New Yorkers in the individual market saw a reduction in their premiums, but only because the individual market was already in such terrible shape. In states where the individual market was not already dysfunctional, there were significant premium increases. This year, New Yorkers can expect premium increases averaging roughly 6 percent for individual plans and almost 7 percent for small business. Grade: C+
PHOTO COURTESTY OF VALLEY HOSPITAL Ridgewood High School (RHS) graduate Hayley Clark was recently hired as a labor and delivery nurse at Valley Hospital.
Ridgewood High School program points alumna toward career in healthcare
AUGUST 20, 2014 LAST UPDATED: WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 20, 2014, 5:05 PM BY LAURA HERZOG STAFF WRITER
Valley Hospital employees can’t help swelling with pride as they welcome their latest labor and delivery nurse, Hayley Clark.
The 2009 Ridgewood High School (RHS) graduate is Valley’s first employee to come from RHS’ Ridgewood Academy of Health Professions (RAHP).
The Valley-RHS partnership, which began in 2005, has offered many students the opportunity to learn about the varied health-related professions.
The program begins sophomore year, so Clark was a member of the second RAHP class.
“It was really exciting to hear back from Valley, because it was where I grew up,” Clark said during a recent interview. “It has such a community feel, right when you walk into the hospital.”
NORWALK, Conn. — Start in Room 4, just beyond the reception area: A man is having blood drained from a bruised finger. Over in Room 1, a woman is being treated for eye trouble. Next door, in Room 2, a boy is having his throat swabbed.
For more than eight hours a day, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year, an assortment of ailments is on display at the tidy medical clinic on Main Avenue here. But all of the patients have one thing in common: No one is being treated at a traditional doctor’s office or emergency room.
Instead, they have turned to one of the fastest-growing segments of American health care: urgent care, a common category of walk-in clinics with uncommon interest from Wall Street. Once derided as “Doc in a Box” medicine, urgent care has mushroomed into an estimated $14.5 billion business, as investors try to profit from the shifting landscape in health care.
The office here is part of PhysicianOne Urgent Care. Bankrolled by two private investment companies, PhysicianOne has grown into an eight-clinic operation, the largest of its kind in Connecticut, with plans for even greater expansion.
But what is happening here is also playing out across the nation, as private equity investment firms, sensing opportunity, invest billions in urgent care and related businesses. Since 2008, these investors have sunk $2.3 billion into urgent care clinics. Commercial insurance companies, regional health systems and local hospitals are also looking to buy urgent care practices or form business relationships with them.
The business model is simple: Treat many patients as quickly as possible. Urgent care is a low-margin, high-volume proposition. At PhysicianOne here, most people are in and out in about 30 minutes. The national average charge runs about $155 per patient visit. Do 30 or 35 exams a day, and the money starts to add up.
Urgent care clinics also have a crucial business advantage over traditional hospital emergency rooms in that they can cherry-pick patients. Most of these centers do not accept Medicaid and turn away the uninsured unless they pay upfront. Hospital E.R.s, by contrast, are legally obligated to treat everyone.
It’s time to defy health-care mandates issued by bureaucrats not in the healing profession.
By DANIEL F. CRAVIOTTO JR. Updated April 28, 2014 7:34 p.m. ET
In my 23 years as a practicing physician, I’ve learned that the only thing that matters is the doctor-patient relationship. How we interact and treat our patients is the practice of medicine. I acknowledge that there is a problem with the rising cost of health care, but there is also a problem when the individual physician in the trenches does not have a voice in the debate and is being told what to do and how to do it.
As a group, the nearly 880,000 licensed physicians in the U.S. are, for the most part, well-intentioned. We strive to do our best even while we sometimes contend with unrealistic expectations. The demands are great, and many of our families pay a huge price for our not being around. We do the things we do because it is right and our patients expect us to.
So when do we say damn the mandates and requirements from bureaucrats who are not in the healing profession? When do we stand up and say we are not going to take it any more?
Readers debate State worker give backs on pensions and healthcare
The pensions and benefits for the officials and employees has already been reduced by the legislature, the costs of health benifits should be curbed by the legislature as well, but for the health care providers to raise costs they should have to go before the board of public utilities regarding tax funded health care costs. Why come after the worker when the health care vendors are milti-billion dollar enterprises, I’ll tell you why, too many politicians at all level of Govt. own stock in these companies and that kind of legislation might affect the stock prices.
Hummm , well in the Private sector I used to pay over $600 per month for health insurance for a single person working in finance and now I have a consulting contract were as part of the deal I pay a bit over $400 per month for insurance (up over 25% since Obamacare) So for the record how much do you really pay in??
> Mammography outcry points to trouble for healthcare reform
Some Republicans say the new recommendations are an example of ‘rationing’ that would take place under Obama’s plan to save money by basing treatment on experts’ advice. By Noam N. Levey
Warning: Undefined array key "sfsi_riaIcon_order" in /home/eagle1522/public_html/theridgewoodblog.net/wp-content/plugins/ultimate-social-media-icons/libs/controllers/sfsi_frontpopUp.php on line 165
Warning: Undefined array key "sfsi_inhaIcon_order" in /home/eagle1522/public_html/theridgewoodblog.net/wp-content/plugins/ultimate-social-media-icons/libs/controllers/sfsi_frontpopUp.php on line 166
Warning: Undefined array key "sfsi_mastodonIcon_order" in /home/eagle1522/public_html/theridgewoodblog.net/wp-content/plugins/ultimate-social-media-icons/libs/controllers/sfsi_frontpopUp.php on line 177
