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I heard that...

...I won't be able to keep my doctor if healthcare reform passes. Is that true?

The current healthcare reform debate has almost nothing to do with whether you can keep your doctor.  Under the proposed changes, you will be free to keep your current health plan if you want to.  And, your health plan will be free to keep your doctor among those you are permitted to see if it chooses to.

Limits on which doctor people can see are set by private insurance plans, unless people pay for their doctors out-of-pocket. These plans may select doctors based on geographic area, specialty type, or other factors. Public insurance plans, like Medicare or Medicaid, are open to any doctor who agrees to participate.  A public plan created under healthcare reform would likely operate the same way.

Insurance plans sometimes exclude doctors so that they can negotiate a better payment rate with the doctors they do include. When there is a smaller pool of doctors in a plan, there are fewer doctors to compete for patients and a higher potential number of patients for each doctor.  Insurance plans sometimes change the doctors included in their plans, and doctors sometimes decide to leave a plan for financial or other reasons. Employers may change the plans they offer their employees, and the new plans may include different doctors.  Employees in turn may decide to switch among the plans offered to them for financial reasons, even if they were happy with the doctors under their old plans. This is a feature of our current system and is unlikely to change under the current healthcare reform proposals.   

Since 1997, The Health Foundation of Greater Cincinnati has invested over $111 million in projects that improve the health of the Cincinnati area. With major healthcare reform imminent, the Health Foundation aims to be a source for credible, timely information that can inform people in our region about the healthcare reform debate. While we do not support any specific plan or approach, we do support certain principles that we believe would improve access to healthcare and make our region healthier.

The Health Foundation supports a healthcare system that:

Please visit http://www.healthfoundation.org/reform for more information.