The Obama administration is requiring health plans in Obamacare insurance marketplaces to include a more robust offering of care providers in 2015 after some early backlash over limited networks in the health care law's first year.Health plans selling on the federal marketplaces in 2015 must include 30 percent of area "essential community providers," which are usually health centers and other hospitals serving mostly low-income patients. That's up from a 20 percent requirement in 2014, the first year of expanded overage under the health care law.The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which oversees the marketplaces, will also take a much more active role in reviewing health plan networks. CMS, which outlined the new standards in a Friday night letter to insurers, will evaluate whether the plans include enough access to hospitals, primary care doctors, mental health providers and oncologists.The updated standards came after a Friday interview in which President Barack Obama acknowledged that pressure to keep down costs could mean consumers may not have access to their choice of doctor.“You may find out that network is more expensive than another network, then you have to make choices in terms of what’s right for your family,” Obama told WebMD. “Do you want to save on costs, or do you want to save on convenience?”
I have never, from noon on January 1. 2009, considered this freedom-hating, America-loathing monster the president of the United States of America. You don't either now, do you?
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