I am old enough to remember when doctors rather than insurance companies treated patients. We are fourteen years into Obamacare. Is health care better as a result of the ACA? I was a young business when the ACA was signed into law in 2010. The only benefit I was able to offer my employees was group health coverage. In late 2010 I found my group policy was going to increase more than 40% and I had to seriously consider if I could keep offering this incentive. My group rates have increased each year since and I just today approved a 10% increase for 2025. Well, lets look at the state of medical care... My right knee cratered in late 2017. For eighteen months I went to rehab and had two exploratory surgeries on that knee. In May of 2019 my doctor met with me and told me quite plainly, "I want to apologize because I knew you required a knee replacement when I first saw you but my hands were tied by the insurance companies".... Eighteen months of agony awaiting the care my doctor knew I needed 18 months prior due to insurance mandates. Of late I have suffered a bad back even having to resort to the occasional wheelchair. I just had a nerve ablation last Friday that has corrected my pain. Again, that journey began over three months ago and consisted of three prior insurance mandated procedures before I could get the treatment I needed. So here we are on the back nine with Obamacare. Are we better off? Have we resigned ourselves to insurance mandates dictating our care rather than our doctors? Are we OK with necessary procedures requiring months to get done? My position is that we are paying more.. Far more in fact and receiving less in return.... And that's my two cents.
Hmm, I'm not convinced insurance companies weren't already running the show pre-ACA. One of the biggest victories of the ACA was protection for pre-existing conditions. I won't argue with the fact that the ACA was largely written by insurance company lobbyists, and suffers greatly for it. Some of the wait is also understaffing and overworking on the part of healthcare professionals. You're definitely paying more and getting less though, healthcare is a joke in that country.
