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We have a new contender for most-telling-ever Obamacare quote this morning: “We have to break people away from the choice habit that everyone has.” That’s Marcus Merz, head of Minnesota health insurer PreferredOne, in a New York Times report on the increasing prevalence of narrow network health plans.
Merz is basically stating openly what the Obama administration won’t, which is that Obamacare is intentionally designed to narrow consumer choice and plan design within the health insurance market.
originally posted by: Metallicus
a reply to: xuenchen
I really hope this isn't true.
It would be just one more reason to be disgusted by Obama and the PTB.
originally posted by: Krazysh0t
Wasn't this obvious? Whenever government gets involved with anything, choice disappears. Hence the term "SINGLE-payer" and we don't even have that system.
Phase III will begin the consolidation of doctors and facilities into larger corporations as they swallow up the small time operations.
originally posted by: theantediluvian
Phase III will begin the consolidation of doctors and facilities into larger corporations as they swallow up the small time operations.
That's already been done. Ask Rick Scott, he made hundreds of millions of dollars doing just that? Looking at the bigger picture, consolidation is a fact of life in a "free market."
Let's talk about how much choice people really had pre-ACA. According the KFF, the percentage of non-elderly people covered by private, non-group insurance plans was 5.8%. How many choices did the other 94.2% have? Most employers (57% of us having employer-sponsored plans) give a choice between 2-3 plans from a single company.
Is the ACA perfect? Faaaaaar from it (what do you expect from a rebranded GOP plan?) but this is a pretty weak argument to justify your daily Obamacare rant.
originally posted by: Krazysh0t
Wasn't this obvious? Whenever government gets involved with anything, choice disappears. Hence the term "SINGLE-payer" and we don't even have that system.
Your seriously going to bring up how much of a "Choice" people have or had???
Now we have people exposing the agenda to actually steer people away from "Choice" !!!
originally posted by: theantediluvian
originally posted by: Krazysh0t
Wasn't this obvious? Whenever government gets involved with anything, choice disappears. Hence the term "SINGLE-payer" and we don't even have that system.
Sounds good but in reality, where we live, the overwhelming majority of mature markets have three dominant competitors. There's a well known economic rule of thumb for this phenomena called, "The Rule of Three."
originally posted by: stormcell
People didn't have a choice in the past - usually it was just the employers HMO (Health Management Organization), and they would decide the doctor who you would see. HMO's were formed when the insurance companies decided that they could save money by forming a collective with selected groups of doctors who would offer reduced prices in return for guaranteed work.