The beauty of ObamaCare.
"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."
"In Seattle, the region’s predominant insurer, Premera Blue Cross, decided not to include the children’s hospital as an in-network
provider except in cases where the service sought cannot be obtained
anywhere else.
“Children’s non-unique services were too expensive given
the goal of providing affordable coverage for consumers,” spokesman Eric
Earling said in an e-mail."
"For example, a pediatric appendectomy
at Children’s costs about $23,000, he said. At another community
hospital, the cost is closer to $14,100. Melzer said his hospital often
bills more than community hospitals for comparable procedures because
the children it treats are often gravely ill, so even a routine
tonsillectomy may be more complicated."
"But as a result, families
like Jeffrey Blank’s, which has relied on Seattle Children’s since his
daughter, Zoe, received a diagnosis of a rare bone disorder, face
difficult decisions. Under some of the new law’s health plans, the
family would no longer be able to take Zoe to Children’s for her routine
checkups, or it could count as an “out-of-network” visit, saddling the family with huge bills."
