Americans for Financial Independence

What is Obamacare?

• Obamacare is an unofficial name for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act which was signed into law by President Obama in 2010.  It was implemented to provide more Americans with affordable health insurance, regulate the health industry and improve the quality of health care in the United States.

 

What does the Affordable Care Act do?

• In 2013, over 44 million Americans were living without health insurance because of its high cost.  Interestingly enough, a majority of these Americans were working families.  Although Obamacare does have its pro's and con's, it accomplishes the following and more:

  • Expands Medicaid eligibility so low income families could pay for the cost of health insurance.

  • Requires that all Americans have health insurance through a private provider or a federally assisted program. 

  • Offers cost assistance and affordable quality premiums through the health insurance marketplace.

  • Allows young adults to stay on their parents' plan until age 26 years.

  • Ends lifetime limits on health insurance coverage.

  • No longer allows healthcare providers to drop you if you become ill, even if you made an honest mistake on your health care applications.

  • Makes it illegal to be denied coverage because of a past illness or be charged more because you are a woman.

  • Reforms Medicare by providing Medicare recipients with new protections and benefits.

 

• Why AFI is a better option...

​While most Obamacare plans are lower cost, the networks that are provided are extremely limited.  

Most of the Obamacare plans have small networks, subset networks of the many larger carriers including Blue Cross Blue Shield, EmblemHealth and Oxford.   

** All of AFI products use the larger, more extensive networks of the major carriers.    

 

For example:

 

AFI plans access the following networks...

• Oxford Liberty Network.................................................   45,000 providers

• EmblemHealth (HIP Prime) Network..........................  45,000 providers

• Oxford Freedom Network..............................................   75,000 providers

• BCBS  (HMO) Network................................................ ..  75,000 providers

 

• Exchange Plans access the following networks...

  • United Healthcare...........................................................   15,000 providers

  • EmblemHealth (Selectcare) Network.........................   15,000 providers

  • BCBS (Pathways) Network..........................................   18,000 providers

 

As you can see, there are significant differences in the availability of participating providers.     

 

 

Articles:  (click for full article)

 

Some Newly Insured Under Obamacare May Have Trouble Finding Doctors... By Karen Pallarito, HealthDay Reporter

"Recent news reports also indicate that some doctors in states like New York and Florida are reluctant to accept Obamacare patients because reimbursement rates are well below those of traditional health insurance plans.  "We are hearing from a lot of physicians that the fees that they're being paid by the exchange plans are substantially below the fees that are paid by the same companies in the commercial plans.  So that's one of the reasons why physicians don't want to participate in the exchange, said Dr. Andrew Kleinman, a plastic surgeon and president of the Medical Society of the State of New York. I've heard fees as low as 50% of the Medicare rate," he added.  

http://consumer.healthday.com/general-health-information-16/doctor-news-206/some-newly-insured-under-obamacare-may-have-trouble-finding-doctors-693968.html

 

Obamacare Still Stinks, Even with Subsidies... By Marc Siegel, NYU Professor of Medicine

New York University professor of medicine Marc Siegel writes that ObamaCare “built another bloated, self-justifying bureaucracy that makes the insurance companies richer and the doctors and patients poorer.” He spends half his time on computer documentation and other administrative hassles. ObamaCare is so heavy with restrictions and penalties, and so light with actual improvments to care, that it isn't working well even with subsidies.   

http://nypost.com/2015/03/09/obamacare-stinks-even-with-subsidies/
 

Obamacare is Blowing Away Expectations... by Guy Benson, Townhall.com Political Editor

Obamacare has failed to substantially reduce all Americans' premiums (they've gone up for the vast majority of people, with the worst yet to come), it has substantially increased health costs for tens of millions (out of pocket costs are astronomical for many), it has stripped people of their preferred plans and doctors, it has exacerbated primary care doctor shortages, it has inflicted "access shock" upon consumers, it has increased the government's healthcare tab, it has impeded economic growth, it has hurt employment, and polls show that it has actively harmed many more people than it's helped.  Those are facts (click through for tons of citations), and they constitute major failures -- far beyond the infamous and costly roll-out debacle, the repercussions of which are still being felt to this day. And yet, President Obama has smirkingly pronounced his signature law a success beyond his wildest dreams, ludicrously claiming that every prediction critics made has been proven wrong:  Guy Benson provides real-world data showing the disasters. While on the law’s fifth anniversary, Obama pronounced his signature law “a success beyond his wildest dreams,” ludicrously claiming that every prediction critics made has been proven wrong,   http://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2015/03/24/obamacare-anniversary-n1974949

 

Incompetence, Mismangement Plague California's Obamacare Insurance Exchange... by Sharyl Attkisson, Emmy award-winning investigative journalist and author of "Stonewalled"

ObamaCare still can’t get enrollment right. The California Exchange, supposed to be the model for the nation, is plagued by incompetence and mismanagement, despite the infusion of $1 billion from federal taxpayers. Covered California’s retention rate (65%) is among the lowest in the nation. Of 500,000 new enrollees predicted for this year, only about 7,000 showed up. It’s an “unaccountable monster."      

http://dailysignal.com/2015/04/20/incompetence-mismanagement-plague-californias-obamacare-insurance-exchange/​

New Poll Confirms Voters Don't Want State Obamacare Exchanges... By Jonathan Ingram, Research Director, Nic Horton, Policy Impact Specialist, Josh Archambault, Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Government Accountability

There will likely be pressure for more States to set up Exchanges. But voters don’t want to live in an ObamaCare state.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2015/04/02/new-poll-confirms-voters-dont-want-state-obamacare-exchanges/