Will Obamacare succeed where term limits failed?

[Husar]

Why does that 'China owns the US' bit still get so much airing? They don't own much more than a tenth of our debt. For the moment, this debt is a bigger liability to China than it is to the US, in terms of geopolitical constraint.

I think if you default they can foreclose your white house.

[Xiahou]

So, "If you like your insurance, you can keep it." has already been proven a lie.

Next up? "If you like your doctor you can keep your doctor."

As Americans have begun shopping for health plans on the insurance exchanges, they are discovering that insurers are restricting their choice of doctors and hospitals in order to keep costs low, and that many of the plans exclude top-rated hospitals.

The Obama administration made it a priority to keep down the cost of insurance on the exchanges, the online marketplaces that are central to the Affordable Care Act. But one way that insurers have been able to offer lower rates is by creating networks that are far smaller than what most Americans are accustomed to.

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The result, some argue, is a two-tiered system of health care: Many of the people who buy health plans on the exchanges have fewer hospitals and doctors to choose from than those with coverage through their employers.

A number of the nation’s top hospitals — including the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles, and children’s hospitals in Seattle, Houston and St. Louis — are cut out of most plans sold on the exchange.

In most cases, the decision was about the cost of care

So on one hand, we have the Obamacare insurance death spiral, on the other hand we have the Obamacare provider death spiral. There's already a shortage of general practitioners in the country. Obamacare provides restricted access to an already small pool and enforces discount rates that will cause even more providers to drop out of the system. This will, in turn, channel more patients to the existing providers who will also leave the exchanges as discounted rates take an ever larger share of their practices.

Many doctors are disturbed that they’ll be paid less – often a lot less – to care for the millions of patients who are projected to buy coverage through the health law’s new insurance marketplaces.

Some have complained to medical associations – including those in Texas, California, Georgia, Connecticut and New York – saying the discounted rates could lead to a two-tiered system in which fewer doctors participate, perhaps making it harder for consumers to get the care they need.

“As it is, there is a shortage of primary care physicians in the country, and they don’t have enough time to see all the patients who are calling them,” said Peter Cunningham, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Center for Studying Health System Change in Washington.

If providers are paid less, he said, “Are (enrollees) going to have difficulty getting physicians to accept them as patients?”

[Montmorency]

Irredentism for Cuba, then.

I know one of my doctors will soon no longer be able to see me; AFAIK the new position he's accepted at another hospital is contractually unable to accept any insurance, nor to authorize claims forms.

[Beskar]

The thing about being cut out, is that those hospitals will have to cut the cost of care to more reasonable levels. Thus, this would bring down healthcare costs so they end up included in these plans. Isn't that what you want from the Free Market?