Obamacare snatches patients’ healthcare
coverage, and leaves patients without doctors, medicine, and hope. That’s right
I said it…NO Hope with Obamacare!
Brain Patient: ObamaCare makes it hard to
find doctors, meds
By Lorena Mongelli and Carl Campanile
April 17, 2014
NY Post
After four brain operations, Margaret
Figueroa thought she was prepared for anything — until she ran into ObamaCare.
“I’m frustrated with the system. I feel
like I paid but I’m not getting what I paid for,” said Figueroa, 49, who broke
down in tears while explaining her bureaucratic nightmare.
“It’s scary because this is America. I
didn’t expect to go through this.”
Figueroa — who has a neurological disorder
— said she enrolled in a new EmblemHealth insurance program in February as
required under the Affordable Care Act. And that’s when her problems began.
After paying her premium, she received a
temporary ID card. But when she went to order medication, the pharmacists said
her name wasn’t in the system. And she said her doctors were not included in
her new medical plan.
“They just don’t have enough doctors. Two
of them are full to capacity, and the others aren’t even in my radius. There
are some who don’t even speak English,” the Arden Heights resident said during
a press conference with Staten Island Rep. Michael Grimm.
“Now I have to find a whole new set of
doctors. The doctors I had were familiar with my condition. I’ve had my
neurologist for years. You want to stay with someone who’s been in your brain
and knows what’s going on.”
Not having a regular doctor has put her in
a Catch-22: A patient can’t get medication without a prescription from a
doctor.
Figueroa takes five different medications a
day, including 60 milligrams of morphine.
“I’ve been sick. I’ve had chills, a lot of
vomiting. The pain is unbearable. I’ve had insomnia. I lost 23 pounds,” she
said. “Who’s going to write the scrips if I don’t have a primary-care doctor?
They’ve been giving us the runaround.”
Out of desperation, she called Grimm’s
office for help on March 24. She now is at least getting some of her
medications.
Grimm, who voted against ObamaCare, was
furious.
“This is now becoming very common,” he
said. Of Figueroa, he said, “This isn’t like someone who needs an aspirin here,
this is her life.”
EmblemHealth declined requests for comment.
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