Elizabeth Warren loves to bash insurers. Yesterday, she introduced a bill* that would radically improve the health insurance offered in the ACA marketplace. Reading the preamble to the bill's one-page summary, you'd think that problems of access and affordability in U.S. healthcare are solely a product of insurance company greed.
Leaving aside various hat-tips to the ACA, here's the indictment:
Leaving aside various hat-tips to the ACA, here's the indictment:
...today, too many patients still have to battle with their insurance companies just to see a doctor or get a prescription filled. Insurance companies draw networks so narrow that patients struggle to find a doctor or get an appointment.1 Patients find out when they get a bill in the mail that they unwittingly relied on an outdated provider directory and now owe hundreds of dollars in unexpected costs for out-of-network care. Insurance companies can drop doctors from their network in the middle of the plan year with no notice, suddenly jack up out-of-pocket costs for a cancer or MS drug, or rip up a plan at the end of the year and leave new mothers or patients dealing with a serious health condition scrambling to maintain access to their doctor.
