A Fix of Obamacare Schadenfreude

I know you've been jonesing for some.

Pennsylvania prepares backup plan for ObamaCare case

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf (D) on Friday outlined a contingency plan for his state in case the Supreme Court guts ObamaCare.

Wolf’s plan calls for Pennsylvania to set up its own insurance marketplace if the court rules against the Obama administration in the case King v. Burwell. The case could revoke subsidies that help 7.5 million people afford healthcare coverage, but only in the roughly three-dozen states relying on the federal marketplace.

If Pennsylvania sets up its own marketplace, as 13 other states have, subsidies there would continue to flow.

That pretty much kills any argument that the Supreme Court can't find for the plaintiffs in King vs. Burwell because then people would be denied subsidies. They can get them if their states want them too.

But should they want them too?  Contrary to goals, ER visits rise under Obamacare. We predicted this:

Three-quarters of emergency physicians say they've seen ER patient visits surge since Obamacare took effect — just the opposite of what many Americans expected would happen.

A poll released today by the American College of Emergency Physicians shows that 28% of 2,099 doctors surveyed nationally saw large increases in volume, while 47% saw slight increases. By contrast, fewer than half of doctors reported any increases last year in the early days of the Affordable Care Act.

Such hikes run counter to one of the goals of the health care overhaul, which is to reduce pressure on emergency rooms by getting more people insured through Medicaid or subsidized private coverage and providing better access to primary care.

Remember how Obama and the democrats sold Obamacare as a way to reduce the use of emergency rooms? They also promised you could keep your health care if you liked it. Good Times!

Remember, Obamacare created more IRS agents, but not more doctors.

Obamacare program may be linked to ER opioid prescriptions

Experts say too many patients are being prescribed opioid painkillers by emergency room doctors, and a program created by Obamacare could be enabling the problem.

A new study released this week found 17 percent of nearly 20,000 patients were discharged from emergency rooms with an opioid prescription. Experts and lawmakers say a push under Obamacare for hospitals to get good patient satisfaction scores is one cause of the problem.
. . .
Doctors may feel pressured by hospital administrators to prescribe opioids because it may lead to a better score on a patient satisfaction survey, experts said.

A program created by Obamacare tied extra funding to high scores on the survey.

"Their reimbursement and quality ratings are linked to ways patients rate them on categories," said Dr. Andrew Kolodny, president of the doctor advocacy group Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing.

Gotta keep those welfare patients satisfied, and nothing satisfies like dope.