This is a story my brother in law, Dr. Philip Henderson, warned you about before he became so distraught about ObamaCare wiping out his Longview, Washington medical practice that he killed himself. The dirty little secret of ObamaCare is a possible 200,000 more Washingtonians could be herded into Medicaid, known as Washington Apple Health. It means those thousands of people pouring into the program will be treated by the same number or, more likely, shrinking number of doctors taking Medicaid patients. You’ll have insurance, but you’ll have a heckuva time finding a doctor.
In the Wall Street Journal this morning, Nicole Hopkins, a New York woman, writes about her 52 year old mom in Pierce County, Washington who has been paying for her individual insurance plan for years after leaving her real estate business.
Unable to secure employer-sponsored health care, she had, until this fall, chosen to pay $276 a month for bare-bones catastrophic coverage. “I think that we should be able to take care of ourselves and to earn enough money to pay for basics, and health insurance is one of them.”
Mom, Charlene Hopkins, finally got “the letter” telling her, because of ObamaCare, her insurance was no longer available.
The situation sounded absurd, so I asked her to walk me through her application on Washington Healthplanfinder to make sure she wasn’t missing anything. Sitting in New York with my computer, I logged onto the site under her name and entered the information my mother provided over the phone.
[H]er “Eligibility Results” came back: “Congratulations, we received and reviewed your application and determined [you] will receive the health care coverage listed below: Washington Apple Health. You will receive a letter telling you which managed care plan you are enrolled with.”
The page lacked a cancel button or any way to opt out of Medicaid. It was done; she was enrolled, and there was nothing to do but click “Next” and then to sign out.
Some people may think this is a huge victory. Hopkins thinks the government sold out her dignity and stole her insurance from her. The saying goes, “a government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you have.” And now it has taken her dignity,
“I just don’t expect anything positive out of getting free health care,” she said. “I don’t see why other people should have to pay for my care, whether it be through taxes or otherwise.” In paying for health insurance herself—she won’t accept help from her family, either—she was safeguarding her dignity and independence and her sense of being a fully functioning member of society.
