The days of finding out what’s in Obamacare, a la Nancy Pelosi, have arrived for Americans who have been confronted with the loss of their insurance plans, doctors and hospitals.
Now, the discovery continues with a report that medicines also are at risk.
Scott Gottlieb, a Forbes analyst on policy, public health and regulation, reports that many drugs may not be covered under Obamacare.
The report follows Obama’s broken promise that Americans can keep their health insurance plans and doctors if they like them. In addition, access to hospitals already is being curbed.
“Simply put, many drugs may not be covered at all, and the costs patients incur by buying them with cash won’t count against out of pocket caps,” Gottlieb reported. “This has repercussions for drug makers with big portfolios of specialty and primary care drugs. … But most of all, it has implications for patients.”
He pointed to the drug Copaxone, which treats multiple sclerosis, as an example.
“Someone on a bronze plan would be responsible for paying about 40 percent of the drug’s costs out of pocket, on average. That comes out to about $1,980 a month,” he said.
“But at least – in this model case – the drug Copaxone was partially covered under the Obamacare plan’s formulary. Consider an even bigger problem lurking inside the law. The out of pocket caps on consumer spending only apply to costs incurred on drugs that are included on a plan’s drug formulary. This is the list of medicines that the health plans have agreed to provide some coverage for. If the drug isn’t on this formulary list, then the patient could be responsible for its full cost (with little or no co-insurance to help offset that cost). Moreover, the money they spend won’t count against their deductibles or out of pocket limits ($12,700 for a family, $6,350 for an individual),” Gottlieb wrote.
It’s already been reported that commonly prescribed medications for pre-existing conditions such has HIV are not being covered fully by Obama’s insurance exchanges.
“In many 2014 plans offered in the ACA’s insurance exchanges, that can mean patients are required to cover as much as 50 percent of the cost of HIV medications, an expense that could run as high as $1,500 per month,” reported Time.
Also, according to the Washington Examiner, an estimated 70 percent of the physicians in California alone won’t participate in the state’s Obamacare exchange.
Dr. Richard Thorp, chief of the California Medical Association, said he wasn’t surprised.
“We need some recognition that we’re doing a service to the community. But we can’t do it for free. And we can’t do it at a loss. No other business would do that.”
The Financial Times said major hospitals, including Memorial Sloan Kettering in Manhattan, MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston and Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles, are off-limits to patients under many Obamacare plans.
“In other words, you can’t keep your plan if you like it, you can’t keep your doctor if you like him and you can’t keep your hospital if you like it,” the report said.
“We’re very concerned,” Cedars-Siani chief Thomas Priselac said. “[Insurers] know patients that are sick come to places like ours. What this is trying to do is redirect those patients elsewhere, but there is a reason why they come here. These patients need what it is we are capable of providing.”
WND reported talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh’s conclusion that the entire Obamacare law is built on a lie.
Not the one from Obama that said, “If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health -care plan.”
The one uncovered in a report from Gallup Politics.
“Every finding in this Gallup story goes against what we have had drummed into us by Obama,” he said.
The bottom line is that most Americans “remain generally positive about the quality of health care they personally receive, their health-care coverage and what they pay for health care,” he said.
Limbaugh said the idea that America’s health system was collapsing and needed rescue was wrong.
“Seventy percent of the American people were happy with the American health-care system,” he noted.
The report said 69 percent of Americans “rate their personal health-care coverage as excellent or good.”
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2013/12/if-you-like-your-medicine-you-can/#m3H04x23MqRgO7bf.99