The LA Times reports some major California insurers have built "narrow networks" of doctors and hospitals for plans that will be offered thru the State's Obamacare Exchange.
Insurance companies (and consultants and many large employers) say that these narrow networks reduce costs by increasing the insurers' ability to negotiate price discounts. Physicians and hospitals say they oppose these narrow networks because they fear patients won't be able to find the doctor or hospital they like, in the plan they like.
As for the State, Peter Lee - executive director of Covered California [the State's Obamacare Exchange] - says "Our interest is in assuring everyone enrolled in a plan has ready access to the clinicians they need . . . That means if a plan can't serve patients, we'll close it down from taking new enrollment"
So if a plan doesn't provide what the Exchange deems sufficient access, the Exchange will make sure the plan can't provide ANY additional access.
Is that a solution?
The Times goes on to say "Consumers could see long wait times, a scarcity of specialists and loss of a longtime doctor."
Isn't that exactly what people say who worry about rationing under Obamacare - and have been relentlessly ridiculed for saying it?
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