Insurers cut Health Care Corners because People want Lower Prices instead of better care!

We appear to be our own worst enemy. Price conscious consumers are getting what they don’t want, fewer choices for dirt cheap insurance.

CNN: Obamacare-Fewer options for many: Nationally the marketplaces offer tens of thousands of different policies with a wide variety of coverage but … They cover a narrow network of doctors and hospitals. WellPoint, a Blue Cross Blue Shield insurer offering policies in 14 states, is narrowing its networks in many markets after research showed consumers care more about the price than the provider.

A survey done by PriceWaterhouse Cooper found that 43% of those surveyed considered the cost of the policy the most important factor when they pick a health insurance plan.

But there should be one hang up written into the Affordable Care Act:

Provisions in the health care reform law say there has to be an adequate number of providers offered in these insurance networks

Sooo...we’ll have to wait and see. But I’m a little more optimistic. I see doctors and hospitals being drawn into the health care exchanges because it will be their one biggest source of income. It will be a market they can't afford to stay away from.  

As the marketplaces are around longer, more providers may opt into the system, according to Dr. Susan Turney, head of the Medical Group Management Association, a trade group that represents multiple physician medical practices. The group's survey of its members in September found that more than 40% were still deciding if they were going to accept the insurance offered through the ACA marketplaces. The association suggests that people who already have a doctor call to see if they will accept a particular policy. While providers are limited with these plans, in the long run Davis said she believes "it's actually a good thing to reward higher quality, lower cost providers" as that could ultimately cut the cost of health care as the reform legislation intended.

I wonder if most tea party and conservative individuals will stay away from the exchanges, and fall away under their own party’s platform of social Darwinism.