ACA could mean less access to care

Published 8:29 pm Monday, September 23, 2013

By Staff Reports

 

  1. Annoyance arises from gov’t error on health care tax forms
  2. Appeals court rejects Texas doctor’s challenge to Affordable Care Act

There’s lots of discussion about the Affordable Care Act, and widely varying estimates of its impact. Supporters say it will help 30 million Americans get health insurance; opponents say 31 million will still be without insurance.

But Obamacare could have an even bigger impact than either side expects. The legislation could exacerbate a coming doctor shortage. What good is insurance if patients can’t get in to see doctors?

“The doctor can’t see you now,” the Los Angeles Times reports. “Consumers may hear that a lot more often after getting health insurance under President Obama’s Affordable Care Act. To hold down premiums, major insurers in California have sharply limited the number of doctors and hospitals available to patients in the state’s new health insurance market opening Oct. 1.”

It’s significant that the news is coming out of California — the state Obama has touted as a model for implementing the ACA. The result, the LA Times reports, will be “long wait times, a scarcity of specialists and loss of a longtime doctor.”

This is on top of a doctor shortage many areas of the country are already experiencing.



“Figure that roughly 30 million more Americans will be put on health insurance rolls once President Obama’s health-care overhaul kicks in,” the Wall Street Journal’s Marketwatch explains. “Then sprinkle in population growth, attrition and the fact that medical school graduation rates haven’t risen and you’re looking at a shortage of anywhere from 90,000 to 150,000 doctors by 2025.”

There’s not just a shortage, there’s also an imbalance. Many new physicians are choosing to specialize and fewer are taking the lower-paying primary care jobs.

So fewer doctors, more patients, and insurance companies that limit providers — Obamacare is shaping up to be a disaster for some patients. Naturally, officials are stepping in to try to tweak the implementation of the law.

“California officials have been pressing Health Net and other insurers to add more doctors since companies filed their initial rosters in May,” the Times reports. “The state exchange, Covered California, says it will monitor enrollment closely once it begins next month and it’s prepared to step in if problems arise.”

One official is quoted as saying, “Our interest is in assuring everyone enrolled in a plan has ready access to the clinicians they need… That means if a plan can’t serve patients, we’ll close it down from taking new enrollment. That is in some ways the nuclear option.”

See the problem here? Government regulations are warping market forces, and the health care industry is doing what it thinks it must to stay in business. But instead of loosening those regulations, government officials propose further rules and intervention. They’re even willing to shut down private companies if they’re not pleased.

As Lanhee Chen of the Hoover Institute points out, “This kind of heavy-handed regulatory activity undercuts the contention that Obamacare will expand options for consumers looking for affordable health-care coverage.”

It’s not too late, however. There’s time to delay (more of) the legislation’s deadlines so foreseeable problems such as access to physicians can be addressed.