That is the sound of Obamacare imploding, at least in North Carolina.<\/p>\n
http:\/\/www.sunherald.com\/2015\/08\/06\/6354810\/blue-cross-raises-rate-hike-sought.html<\/a><\/p>\n Surprisingly, healthy low risk people in North Carolina don’t want to pay $300 a month for health insurance with a $5,500 deductible before Blue Cross pays anything.<\/p>\n I dipped my toe into the waters a couple weeks ago, visiting a primary care doctor to get “established”. The second visit, to go over my test results was a 15 minute appointment, which today means 5 minutes, which means about 2 minutes of conversation. After Blue Cross adjusted down the charge, my cost for arguing with him that 112 is not a “high” blood glucose reading, and a sonogram he ordered showed nothing troubling at all was $165.<\/p>\n So Blue Cross needs a 26% increase, another $1000 on the deductible – and the new detail is they want to drop the more expensive plans that allow seeing a wide range of doctors and only offer the “Value” plan I currently have – which is a very narrow list of providers – probably about the same list of doctors that accept Medicaid.<\/p>\n If I want to spend $200 a month, I can enroll in a private concierge plan where the primary care doctor will do an actual physical exam for an hour and accommodate same day or next day appointments as issues come up during the year. Where my niece is expected to take care of 2,500 patients, a concierge doctor will stop at 250 to 300 patients. Do the math – $2400 x 300. While that covers the office visits, there is other ancillary income from taking X-Rays, etc that are billed to the insurance company.<\/p>\n It had been 5 years since I’ve seen a doctor, and probably close to 10 years without seeing a doctor prior to my 2009 incident. I am a high risk patient, of course and a mentally ill hypochondriac, obviously.<\/p>\n Blue Cross needs the revenue to prevent the remaining plans from falling apart. The monthly increase + increased deductible will push my cost up to around $14,000 a year for the privilege of having an overworked GP grunt at me and roll his eyes when I ask about vitamin D deficiency. I apologize to y’all for being such a freeloader.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" That is the sound of Obamacare imploding, at least in North Carolina. http:\/\/www.sunherald.com\/2015\/08\/06\/6354810\/blue-cross-raises-rate-hike-sought.html Surprisingly, healthy low risk people in North Carolina don’t want to pay $300 a month for health insurance with a $5,500 deductible before Blue Cross pays anything. … Continue reading