An angry Washingtonian surveys his new healthcare reality:
Checking the Washington state health-insurance exchange, I found I am among millions who are getting a much worse deal — much higher premiums with higher deductibles and less choice of doctors, and ineligible for the Affordable Care Act tax credit. My current premium is $278 per month with a $3,500 deductible. My Blue Shield insurer is canceling this policy and not offering any policies on the state health-insurance exchange. The least expensive off-exchange policy it now offers is $545 per month, roughly double what I pay now, with a $5,000 in-network and $10,000 out-of-network deductible.
On the Washington state exchange, the least expensive option, in the bronze category, is $433 per month, a 56 percent increase. But this policy is from a no-name insurer that few of my providers will accept. The only Blue Cross and Blue Shield provider on the exchange offers a bronze policy for $492 per month — a 77 percent increase. What does the extra $214 per month offer? A lot less than I have now. My deductible would rise to $5,000 for in-network providers and $10,000 for out-of-network providers, and the number of providers in network would decline. This is a nationwide phenomenon, as insurers limit access to doctors and hospitals on the exchanges.
When sticker shock and doc shock collide next year, millions more Americans are going to be livid. Zeke Emanuel and friends can dissemble and revise ’til they’re blue in the face; spin won’t change realities on the ground. Democrats are laboring under the delusion that once Obamacare’s websites are repaired and functional, their political problem will melt away. Good luck with that. The Healthcare.gov fiasco is merely an appetizer. The law itself is the rib-sticking main course.
