STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Thursday, 10 July 2014

[Demeter]

4. ObamaCare Roundup: Random Rates and Narrow Networks

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/06/obamacare-roundup-random-rates-narrow-networks.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29



In yesterday’s roundup, we pointed out that the administration has left about 3.7 million Medicaid applicants or beneficiaries under ObamaCare in limbo with paperwork problems. That’s third world stuff. It’s unconscionable. There’s no excuse for it. And it’s all the more a saddening indicator of the general demoralization and crapification of American life that pointing such things out produces ennui or worse, excuse making, instead of burning outrage at the way a government that’s supposed to be of the people, by the people, for the people actually treats its citizens, especially when they are suffering or in need.

That said, I want to look at two emergent and continuing problems with ObamaCare. First, rates that vary randomly by jurisdiction; and second, narrow networks for both doctors and pharmaceutical formularies. (These problems have long been known to NC readers; see here, here, here, and here.)

ObamaCare and Random Rates

That insurance rates would vary wildly by jurisdiction was known before launch:

Consumers [sic] shopping in the new health insurance marketplaces will face a bewildering array of competing plans in some counties and sparse options in other places, with people in some areas of the country having to pay much more for the identical level of coverage than consumers elsewhere.

A Kaiser Health News analysis of the 1,923 plans being sold on federally run online marketplaces found wide variations of price and availability. For instance, Cigna is offering 50-year-olds one of its midlevel plans for $614 if they live in Flagstaff, Ariz. That same plan, contracting with different hospitals and doctors, will cost $428 in Phoenix and just $395 in Nashville.

(Here again, NC readers could see this one coming.) And the variations did indeed happen after launch. For example, in Michigan:

Rates in these rural counties are among the highest in the state, according to analysis by the Ann Arbor-based Center for Healthcare Research & Transformation (CHRT), a nonprofit partnership between the University of Michigan and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan.

The least expensive basic plan for a 40-year-old couple with two children costs $761 in Delta County, compared with $462 a month for a comparable plan in Kent County, $560 in Washtenaw County and $566 in Ingham County. While Delta County offered just five insurance plans with one insurer, Kent County had four insurers and 33 plans, Ingham County five insurers and 39 plans and Washtenaw County five insurers and 40 plans.

Again, I think this is unconscionable. Where’s the justice in a citizen who lives on one side of the county line paying more for health insurance — and making life, or even life and death, decisions based on how much they have to pay — and a citizen on the other side paying less? None, that I can see. Well, to be fair, costs — and hence insurance company profit margins — may be different in the two counties. But all that says is that we need a single payer system to introduce a baseline of basic fairness. Social Security benefits don’t vary by the county, so why should health care costs?

MUCH MORE COOL REASON AT LINK