Since I don't have a job, I have individual health insurance that I pay for myself. Starting March of this year, I was forced on one of the new Obamacare failplans. The cost of my insurance went from $172/mo to $255/mo, despite nearly identical benefits. Or so I thought.

This past week, I needed to see an opthalmologist, due to some strange pain in my left eye. It did not seem serious enough to go to the ER, but something I wanted to have checked out.

I looked up doctors on my insurance company's website. I found a large opthalmology office in my area where all of the doctors took my insurance.

I called the doctor's office and made an appointment. I verified that they took my insurance.

I got there on Monday afternoon, only to find out the bad news: They didn't actually take my insurance, because I had an individual plan. Basically they were not taking anyone on an individual plan, regardless of the insurance company.

I called up another opthalmology group in the area. Same story.

In fact, every office I called would not take my insurance!

I called the insurance company to inquire what was going on. How was it possible that these doctors were listed, yet when I got there, they didn't take my insurance?

What was I getting for my $255/mo?

I was told that all doctors had an option to terminate the contract with the insurance company at any time, and that the IT people weren't fast enough to update all of the offices that had dropped out. Apparently there has been a mass exodus from taking these individual plans.

But why?

Apparently these individual plans pay shit to the doctors, so most doctors are rejecting them, figuring that they will focus on the patients with employer-based insurance, which still pays them well.

And why does employer-based insurance pay better? Because the premiums are very high, so they can afford it. Individual plans only worked in the pre-Obamacare days because they could deny coverage to people with expensive pre-existing conditions. Now that they have to take everyone, there's basically no money left in the system to pay doctors the market rate, so they dramatically lowered what they pay, and doctors are dropping these plans like hotcakes.

Of course, the insurance company doesn't tell you this until you show up to the doctor's office and get the bad news.

And it's impossible to do a search for doctors who ARE covered, as these websites are not accurate. Even the phone reps cannot tell you, as they have the same flawed info as you.



Coincidentally, a lawsuit was just filed about exactly this situation:

http://insurancenewsnet.com/oarticle...l#.VCT1PvldV7s

I think I might contact these people and ask if I can join.

While much of the fault rests with insurance companies here, some also rests with the creators of Obamacare, who foolishly didn't see this situation coming.

So basically, if you're in California, your individual plan is now relegated to a few shit doctors who are willing to be underpaid for their services. And it's 50% more expensive than your good plan from last year.

So basically Obamacare helped the people who couldn't get individual insurance, but screwed everyone else who already had it.