UnitedHealth drops thousands of doctors: Seniors scramble to find coverage

[Brittain33]

Again, Obamacare can't promise an insurance company will keep your doctor in its network any more than he can promise that your local grocery store will keep stocking Caffeine Free Mountain Dew even though you're the only one who likes it.  In fact, if Obama did try to compel insurance companies to hold on to your doctors the right wingers would be rolling around in the streets shrieking about socialism, and they might even have a point.

All Obama's "promise" means that Obamacare will not compel any insurance company to drop a doctor, and it doesn't.  If an insurance company decides to do what's in its own best interest (and the interests of its customers, if that's to drop expensive doctors and lower people's premiums), that's the decision of the company, not of Obama.

Anyway, everyone knows this.  The Right is just fauxraging and concern trolling over this non-issue.

Well then he should've thought before he spoke. Remember when Bush landed on the aircraft carrier? Don't you think he should've thought before speaking too?

When Bush lied, thousands died.

[Mordecai]

Remember when Bush landed on the aircraft carrier? Don't you think he should've thought before speaking too?

The thinking should have occurred long before that, when he was cutting taxes, increasing defense spending, massively expanding the size of the federal government, and invading another country, destabilizing it and occupying it with an insufficient amount of troops. The speech and banner was just the cherry on top of the horrible cake.

[King]

I like how Obamacare is getting blamed for business as usual actions at insurance companies now.  This is not surprising considering a pillar of conservatism is a romanticized past.

If the pre-Obamacare insurance world was a world where premiums were static, benefits offered were static, and doctors in network were static, there never would have been a political movement for healthcare reform in the first place.

Some people are seeing premiums going up this year, as they did last year and the year before.
Some people are being dropped this year, as some were last year, and the year before.
Some doctors are being reshuffled by HMOs, as some were last year, and the year before.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Again, Obamacare can't promise an insurance company will keep your doctor in its network any more than he can promise that your local grocery store will keep stocking Caffeine Free Mountain Dew even though you're the only one who likes it.  In fact, if Obama did try to compel insurance companies to hold on to your doctors the right wingers would be rolling around in the streets shrieking about socialism, and they might even have a point.

All Obama's "promise" means that Obamacare will not compel any insurance company to drop a doctor, and it doesn't.  If an insurance company decides to do what's in its own best interest (and the interests of its customers, if that's to drop expensive doctors and lower people's premiums), that's the decision of the company, not of Obama.

Anyway, everyone knows this.  The Right is just fauxraging and concern trolling over this non-issue.

The point is that the interests of the insurance companies and of doctors change due to the ACA and the regulations of the Obama administration.  Something that made financial sense for them to offer before nor longer does.

Obamacare could have been put in place in its entirety without touching Medicare Advantage. The health insurance market for seniors is separate from that affected by Obamacare.

The only reason Medicare Advantage was cut was to reduce the deficit and make Obamacare revenue-neutral or revenue-positive. This was never a consideration for Medicare Part D when Republicans were in power, but it was a requirement the Dems took upon themselves as a matter of fiscal responsibility.

Shua, in criticizing Obama for ending Medicare Advantage, you are advocating for deficits and wasteful spending in order to score gotcha points on a related but independent policy. You are welcome to do so, but I would question what you stand for, strategically, if your focus is on tactics. Do you support higher deficits and wasteful subsidies? If not, why are you happy for this?

I'm not necessarily criticizing Obama for ending Medicare Advantage - which he actually didn't btw, he reduced funding thereby ending and changing some plans.  I'd have to look at into the issue in more detail to see to what extent that was a good decision.  What I am saying is- be honest about the effects of your policies and that this is not just a win-win-win for the vast majority of people as it has been sold as and as some people are still incredibly claiming.

[Likely Voter]

It does seem that Obamacare has created a strange kind of amnesia that before Obamacare insurers never cancelled policies or change doctors or raised rates or did anything bad. For the next few years everything bad that happens in the world of health care is going to be blamed on Obama.


And Regarding Medicare Advantage
The Romney/Ryan economic plan included the same Medicare Advantage payment cuts as Obamacare even though they say they planned to repeal Obamacare. So Medicare Advantage was getting payment cuts regardless.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/aug/15/stephanie-cutter/ryans-plan-includes-700-billion-medicare-cuts-says/

[Franzl]

Amazing what some people consider to be "health insurance".

[All Along The Watchtower]

I didn't realize that the federal government had control over how private/corporate insurance companies routinely behave. 

THANKS OBAMA