Due to the requirements of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, many private insurance plans that individuals had and were told they could keep have since been eliminated. As an alternative to the private insurance plans, Healthcare.gov automatically offered patients Medicaid coverage.
The insurance change is in opposition to many of his patients’ wishes, according to Dr. Singer, trapping them with substandard coverage that isn’t accepted by many physicians. More than half (55 percent) of physicians surveyed by Merritt Hawkins are not even accepting new Medicaid patients.
In all likelihood, Dr. Singer isn’t the only one to have witnessed patients being moved automatically to Medicaid when they signed up for health insurance on Healthcare.gov. In states that have expanded Medicaid, as many as 80 percent of patients have been removed from their private insurance, according to a study from Boston University and Harvard Medical School in Boston.
In Dr. Singer’s opinion, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act may intend to increase healthcare coverage for all Americans, but individuals who have been shifted from private insurance to Medicaid are getting less care with longer wait times.
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