Wingnut article needs debunking: "7 out of 10 California doctors to boycott exchanges"

[kratos00]

I keep seeing this pop up on Reddit does anybody have a reputable debunking of this claim?

[Scuba]

1. Ask to name even one.

[arcane1]

2. Where is the article?

Do you have a link to it?

[denverbill]

3. #1-The 'exchanges' are where people buy insurance. How could doctors 'boycott' that?

Is the article saying 70% of CA doctors aren't buying their insurance through the exchanges?

[onpatrol98]

4. I've seen those articles...

I'm unclear as to whether the doctors are boycotting OR whether the insurance companies are opting out of expensive care. Or, both. Maybe that's a hospital thing.

The article I saw mentioned that doctors were saying their names are showing up as participants, but they either are not participating or haven't made up their minds as to whether or not they will participate.

If they decide not the participate, I'm not sure what could be done about it. I assume you can't make someone participate in a program, if they don't think they'll get paid reasonably. We may need a doctors "within" borders program.

The news media is useless, so I guess we'll see soon enough. January is right around the corner.

[EC]

9. What do you mean participate in it?

Obamacare is just regulation of the insurance business, has nothing for doctors to participate in. If they accept BlueCross/BlueShield or any other known health insurance they are already "in it". If they want to practice period they'll have to accept their patients insurances.

[onpatrol98]

10. Heck...I don't know.

As I said, it's confusing to me.

Factcheck
ACA doesn’t 'set prices' on health insurance exchanges
Posted Dec 8, 2013, 5:28 pm

Robert Farley
Factcheck.org

--snip--
No statistics are publicly available to substantiate whether the plans on the exchange are offering more limited networks, but there is anecdotal evidence that some insurance providers are offering plans that restrict choices to a relatively small network of doctors and hospitals. As Jonathan Chait of New York magazine wrote, “It’s making customers more sensitive to price. Of course, the flip side of this dynamic is that the ruthless price competition is encouraging insurers to squeeze doctors and hospitals. The most affordable plans on the exchanges often exclude more expensive providers.”

Contrary to Santorum’s assertion, however, the Affordable Care Act does not set the price levels for care. The law requires insurance companies to spend at least 80 percent of premiums on health costs — as opposed to spending on administration, marketing, and profit. But the actual prices for medical services are set by insurance companies offering plans on the exchanges; and those same insurance companies decide what doctors and hospitals will be in the network. In Missouri, for example, Anthem BlueCross BlueShield excluded one of the state’s top hospital systems from policies it offered on the exchange.
--snip--

http://www.tucsonsentinel.com/nationworld/report/120813_aca_price_setting/aca-doesnt-set-prices-health-insurance-exchanges/

[EC]

12. All of them I saw on the exchange

had links to providers...but they were mostly top names already in use here in WI like Anthem, but if someone had Anthem before it was all the same providers. Where I live there are major "health care providers" like United Health and Aurora and Kindred...these usually are offered by one or the other insurances, there aren't very many insurance companies that cover all of them. It's like the insurance and the health care providers (hospitals and doctors) seem to be affiliated with each other. There was one new one called Assure...it paid a lower percentage and had higher co-pays etc. and it likely had less providers (I'm thinking it was Aurora). But it's nonsense that the repubs are spouting. Maybe tell whoever it is spouting this crap to look at the Marketplace and see what is offered.

[onpatrol98]

13. Much of what they are spouting is sure to be nonsense...

However, to my mind, it's wouldn't be surprising at all to me if insurance companies found a way to make a buck on the backs of the American public. They're parasites. Company policies aren't written with real people in mind, only dollars.

[EC]

14. I always thought of them as extortionists.

Pay me for your protection type.

[pkdu]

5. Written by this guy, in Washington Examiner...

RICHARD POLLOCK
Senior Watchdog Reporter
Richard Pollock is senior watchdog reporter for the Washington Examiner. The former Washington bureau chief for PJ Media, Pollock spent nearly a decade with ABC News as Washington producer for "Good Morning America." He also served as senior producer for "Fox News Sunday" with Tony Snow.

Nuff said.

[Turbineguy]

6. If it's from the RW

they probably meant 10 out of 7.

[Xyzse]

7. LOL - Who is the numb-n-ts writing that carp.

Well, considering that most Doctors get their insurance from where they work. They tend not to use exchanges.

Do you mean, they are boycotting people who get their insurance from the Exchange? Well that is a damn lie, they will get their payment wherever they can get it, and it comes from the insurance companies who don't really differentiate where they got their clients.

[Thor_MN]

8. I have a conservative cousin that posted on FaceBook

It was a "Notice" supposedly going up in doctor's offices that they were not providers for insurance bought through the exchanges and the person would be "responsible for all charges". Lost of bold underlined warnings and nicely laminated. Someone went to the bother of laminating bullshit to make it look official.

[subterranean]

11. No credible source is cited for this claim.

The only source mentioned in the article (link: http://washingtonexaminer.com/doctors-boycotting-californias-obamacare-exchange/article/2540272 ) is unnamed "independent insurance brokers."

Also, not accepting insurance plans in the exchange is not the same as "boycotting" them.

[kratos00]

15. Thank you!

Thank you!

[Xithras]

16. It's technically true, but it's nothing new.

Only a relatively small percentage of California doctors accept Medi-Cal currently, because the reimbursement rates are abysmally low. There is, for example, only one cardiologist in the entire greater Oakland area (SF East Bay) that accepts Medi-Cal. One doctor in an area with around a half-million people. There are a lot of GP's that take Medi-Cal, but specialists are hard to come by (and the majority of doctors are specialists).

The states insurance commissioner and the head of CA-HHS have already made statements advising people to check out the provider networks of their plans before choosing one. As an example, the list of providers offered in a "regular" Blue Shield plan is going to be substantially larger than the provider list offered in a CoveredCA Blue Shield plan. When the new plans were put together, reimbursement rates for the cheapest "bronze" plans were essentially cut to Medi-Cal levels by most insurance companies, and a lot of doctors who take "private" Blue Shield plans opted out. This has fundamentally created a two-tier system for people using Blue Shield. If you have a private Blue Shield policy, you can access their entire network. If you have a CoveredCA Blue Shield policy, you will only have access to a portion of their network. The same services are available, but with far fewer doctors.

My own doctors office sent me a letter two months ago about this. They made the decision that a couple of the doctors in their practice would accept CoveredCA plans, while the rest would not. The patients currently seeing the CoveredCA doctors will be permitted to switch to other doctors in the practice at any time, so their medical care wouldn't be "delayed" by the expected backlog of new patients trying to get in to see their new doctors. Patients currently seeing other doctors in the practice were told that they would need to change to one of the CoveredCA doctors if they moved from a private plan into a public one. They have dealt with Medi-Cal patients the same way for at least the last decade (interestingly, the Medi-Cal patients who currently see those doctors will NOT be allowed to switch to a new doctor, and will just have to deal with the larger backlog).