Is it a matter of “choice,” Mr. Emanuel? Is it?
Wallace: President Obama famously promised, ‘if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.’ Doesn’t that turn out to be just as false, just as misleading, as his promise about ‘if you like your plan, you can keep your plan’? Isn’t a fact, sir, that a number, most in fact, of the ObamaCare health plans that are being offered on the exchanges exclude a number of doctors and hospitals to lower costs?
Emanuel: The president never said you were going to have unlimited choice of any doctor in the country you want… But look, if you want to pay more for an insurance company that covers your doctor, you can do that. It’s a matter of choice. … The issue isn’t the selective networks… People are going to have a choice of whether they want to pay a certain amount for a selective network, or pay more for a broader network. They get that choice.
Yes, which isn’t much comfort if you are now precluded from seeing your same doctor unless you start paying more more, is it? How odd that they mysteriously neglected to mention that little caveat when they were making grandiose promises while simultaneously designing a system that would try to prevent premiums from skyrocketing by deliberately, systematically, and drastically limiting provider networks and reducing consumer choice, no?
Join the conversation as a VIP Member