"Medical Homelessness"

It’s beginning to be felt in California. Many of those who signed up for Obamacare insurance policies on the exchanges have discovered that they cannot get an appointment with a doctor. So they are going back to the free clinics they frequented before Obamacare made a hash of the medical system.

So much for affordable health care.

The CBS affiliate in San Francisco is calling it... medical homelessness:

While open enrollment for coverage under the Affordable Care Act is closed, many of the newly insured are finding they can’t find doctors, landing them into a state described as “medical homelessness.”

Rotacare, a free clinic for the uninsured in Mountain View, is dealing with the problem firsthand.

Mirella Nguyen works at the clinic said staffers dutifully helped uninsured clients sing up for Obamacare so they would no longer need the free clinic.

But months later, the clinic’s former patients are coming back to the clinic begging for help. “They’re coming back to us now and saying I can’t find a doctor, “said Nguyen.

Thinn Ong was thrilled to qualify for a subsidy on the health care exchange.  She is paying $200 a month in premiums. But the single mother of two is asking, what for?

“Yeah, I sign it. I got it. But where’s my doctor? Who’s my doctor? I don’t know,” said a frustrated Ong.

Nguyen said the newly insured patients checked the physicians’ lists they were provided and were told they weren’t accepting new patients or they did not participate in the plan.

An insurance policy is of little use when you cannot get a timely appointment with a physician. 

Also, note well, prior to Obamacare people without health insurance did not have to go to emergency rooms. They were provided with free health care at clinics.

Is this just a glitch in the system or is it the face of things to come?

Those who can’t find a doctor are supposed to lodge a complaint with state regulators, who have been denying the existence of a doctor shortage for months.

Meanwhile, the sick and insured can’t get appointments.

“What good is coverage if you can’t use it?” Nguyen said.

Experts said the magnitude of the problem is growing, and will soon be felt by all Californians. But those on the front lines, like the free clinic, are feeling it first.

More than 3 million Californians are newly insured. At the same time, a third of our primary care doctors are set to retire.

Did you catch that? A third of California’s primary care physicians are going to retire.

I would like to know this: who did Thinn Ong vote for? If she voted for Obamacare, will she continue voting Democratic?