Tom Coburn's Obamacare comments about Obamacare When Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., pointed out that the majority of
cancer centers in the country aren't covered under Obamacare while
arguing that the law's problems go beyond early website issues,
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., dismissed the critique
as too "in the weeds."
Coburn, a medical doctor battling cancer, panned the coverage offered
to cancer patients.
"Nineteen of the cancer centers in this country, only five are covered
under Obamacare," he told the Washington Examiner Tuesday, a data
point he attributed to the low payments the Affordable Care Act provides
for those treatments.
"You know, it's a market, and what they've done is they've priced it
where these cancer centers, a lot of them, aren't going to participate
because they don't get paid to cover the costs," he said. Coburn, who
is retiring at the end of this year, said his cancer center initially refused
to accept the government health insurance, but has since reversed that
policy.
Reid suggested that Coburn was taking too narrow a view of the law.
"Dr. Coburn is very good at getting into the weeds and trying to find
something that he thinks makes sense, but I think we need to look at
the overall context of this bill," he replied when asked about Coburn's
comments during a Senate press briefing. "It really brings a lot of people
in from the cold so that they have the ability to get health insurance,
which they've never had the opportunity [to do] before."
Reid hailed the White House's announcement that seven million people
had enrolled in insurance through Obamacare, but Coburn said the statistic
is a "numbers game."
"You had six million who lost their insurance, how many net new people got
covered? How many who lost their insurance don't have insurance today?"
Coburn asked. "And is it affordable? ... The ones that lost their insurance now
have [Obamacare], and we don't know what that number is. I guarantee you
three-quarters of them are paying a significantly higher cost, have a higher co-pay
and a higher deductible."
http://washingtonexaminer.com/harry-reid-dismisses-cancer-patient-tom-coburns-obamacare-concern/article/2546634
