A small taste: NH samples Obamacare | New Hampshire OPINION01

A small taste: NH samples Obamacare | New Hampshire OPINION01


Remember when President Obama said that if his health care “reform” law passed, you’d still get to keep your doctor? Medicare Advantage participants in the Granite State are finding out what a lie that was.

Medicare Advantage is a subset of Medicare in which the federal government pays private insurers a set monthly rate to provide coverage that is approved and regulated by Medicare. The private insurers can charge different rates and offer a wider variety of services than are offered in traditional Medicare. Though Medicare Advantage costs more in its startup phase, the idea is to save money in the long run by providing incentives for insurers to reduce costs. But because the plan is market-based, the Obama administration wants to kill it. Obamacare eventually defunds it.

New Hampshire has a high percentage of Medicare Advantage enrollees. Last month, 7,600 of them received notices that their coverage was being cancelled. Obamacare and another federal law passed in 2008, the Medicare Improvement for Patients and Providers Act, are killing Medicare Advantage to steer senior citizens back into regular Medicare, which offers fewer choices and is more heavily controlled from Washington.

As a result, thousands of Granite State seniors are being forced to switch doctors because they have to switch coverage.

This is just a taste of what is to come if Obamacare takes effect in full force. Its regulations will so skew the private insurance market that millions will lose the coverage they have and be forced into plans preferred by bureaucrats in Washington. They will lose access to their doctors, too. It would make a lot more sense to reform the health insurance market by working to give people more control over their own care, not less.