© Kristy Leibowitz Margaret Figueroa, at home on Staten Island, has a hard time getting meds to treat her nerve disorder.
"I've been vomiting. I lost 22 pounds. The pain is unbearable," said Margaret Figueroa, 49, on Wednesday. "My medication helps me function during the day."
Figueroa suffers from a disease known as Arnold Chiari Malformation and Syringomyelia. Even though the Obamacare plan she purchased assured her that she was covered, her insurance card was denied when she went to fill her prescriptions. Then she learned that none of her doctors accept her Obamacare plan. Figueroa says she cannot find a doctor who accepts her Obamacare plan; indeed, there are only six doctors in all of Staten Island who take her plan, none of whom she's been able to get appointments with.
Figueroa's congressman, Rep. Michael Grimm (R-NY), intervened to help her obtain some of her vital prescriptions. Grimm says he's already received calls from at least a dozen Staten Island residents facing the same problem with Obamacare's "narrow networks" - extreme restrictions to doctor and hospital access imposed by Obamacare.
"Even though the insurance company cashed your check, it doesn't mean it (the policy) has been implemented," said Grimm at a Wednesday press conference with Figueroa. "That's the problem - that the back end of Obamacare hasn't been fully built. You can go on the front end of an application and look at a list of plans, but what they don't tell you is that many of those plans don't have doctors yet."
Figueroa is not alone.
As Breitbart News reported in January, the Washington Post warned that "Obamacare's narrow networks are going to make people furious - but they might control costs." Breitbart News contributor Scot Vorse learned the hard way about Obamacare's narrow networks when the nearest dentist who accepted the mandatory dental plan he was required to purchase for his children was over 100 miles away.
Obamacare's narrow networks have also shut out access to top cancer centers. The Associated Press says just 4 of 19 nationally recognized comprehensive cancer centers offer Obamacare access through all insurance plans in their state Obamacare exchanges, and a McKinsey and Co. study revealed 38% of all Obamacare plans only allow patients to pick from just 30% of the largest 20 hospitals in their areas.
Experts say the narrow network horror stories will only grow as more and more Obamacare customers attempt to use their Obamacare insurance only to realize its harsh realities.
Obamacare remains deeply unpopular nationally. The latest USA Today/Pew Research poll finds that just 37% of Americans now support Obamacare.
This article points out another aspect of the insurance company prepared Affordable Care Act. There is nothing that requires a doctor or healthcare provider from subscribing to the payment schedule for a specific insurance plan. Can you see where this is headed? The insurance companies are in charge, they set up an insurance plan with cheap rates based on cheap payments to health care providers, but most people don't find this out until they have signed up and find that there are no doctors in their area that will accept the insurance plan that they purchased. This has been happening in medicare for years, a good friend of mind told me 10 years ago that he couldn't find any doctors in Alaska when visiting his children. No one would accept medicare payment as full payment, so unless you have deep pockets and can easily pay the difference, tough. As I read the article I see it as misinformation written to cast more doubt on the affordable care act. Instead of focusing on what the real problems are with the act as written, the whole process of providing health care for the uninsured is discredited since that was the stated purpose of Obamacare.