The first two months of Obamacare created a rare convergence between supporters and opponents of the law: Everyone agreed that the rollout was a disaster. The consensus reached all the way up to President Obama himself, who went so far as to list the "poor execution on my administration's part" alongside the GOP's "reckless shutdown" as reasons that "frustrations with Washington are at an all-time high." It was like an Obamacare miracle. But with HealthCare.gov improving, the convergence is ending. For Obamacare's supporters, the IT problems really were IT problems. Now that the Web site is working the law will likely work, too.
When Diane Shore got a letter that her health policy would be canceled, the small premium increase for a new plan didn't bother her that much. What she's really troubled by is: "My physicians will no longer be in this network of physicians, or the hospitals won't be as well." Sixty-two year old Shore owned an IT consulting business in the San Francisco Bay Area, and retired when she sold her business in 2000. She says she wants to stick with the providers that she's had for years, including the surgeon who cared for her during a bout of breast cancer in 1998.
During the first eight months of this year, fewer than 18 percent of Medicare patients ended up back in the hospital within a month of discharge, the lowest rate in years, the government reported Friday. This drop occurred during the first year that Medicare financially penalized hospitals for their readmission rates, and the government seized on the decrease as evidence the incentives are having an effect. The government is targeting rehospitalizations as a significant indicator of gaps in medical quality in the nation's hospitals.
Let's say you were to fall off the ladder while putting up your trademark, Clark Griswold-style Christmas lights. You're rushed to the emergency room, evaluated, and stabilized. Then the hospital has several options: They can send you home or admit you as an inpatient for further treatment. But increasingly, hospitals are shuffling older patients to a third alternative, a category called "observation status" under which patients are monitored (and often treated) by doctors, but never formally "admitted" in the eyes of either the hospital or the insurer. As it turns out, this classification is great for hospitals, but it can be far more expensive for patients.
At Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, the push is on to get patients insured under Obamacare plans. Since Thanksgiving, there's been a line outside of the hospital's enrollment center every morning when the doors open at 7. With the HealthCare.gov website now working better, the hospital is helping more than 100 people a day look over and enroll in plans. "We've reached out to 22,000 of our patients," said Marian Morrow, Parkland's patient financial service manager, in the crowded enrollment office. In 2012, Parkland provided $685 million in uncompensated care for its mostly uninsured patient population and for those who are underinsured.
Thirty percent of adults say they or a family member had to put off medical treatment in the last year because it was too expensive, according to a Gallup poll released Monday. Breaking down those numbers more, nearly 60 percent of uninsured people, the poll indicates, say they have put off medical treatment. Meanwhile, less than a quarter of people enrolled in the government programs — Medicare and Medicaid — told Gallup they have delayed treatments. A quarter of those who have private insurance said the same.