I admit, I was wondering how this administration was planning to implement one of the key tools of British/Canadian healthcare – to wit; delaying ‘non-life-threatening’ procedures for long enough for a certain percentage of patients to die from something else and another certain percentage to simply give up* – but I should have realized that you can always find a way to bureaucratically obfuscate. In this particular case? Why, there’s nothing like a good state/federal paperwork mismatch:
An Obamacare computer-system snarl means Bill Douglas will wait for weeks or months for the eye surgery he needs.
Douglas thought he’d finally have health insurance this week to pay for the procedure, but his application and those of nearly 16,000 other Iowans are snagged in a last-minute foul-up between the state and federal governments.
Douglas, 62, was discouraged by a notice last weekend that it could take another six weeks for state officials to deliver an answer about his application, which he initially filed in November. With his insurance situation still in limbo, he called his ophthalmologist’s office to cancel an appointment for an initial assessment for the laser procedure, which would treat his glaucoma.
Continue reading Iowa man continues to go blind, thanks to #obamacare.