'Covered' is not the same as 'getting healed'

The die-hard backers of Obamacare insist the Affordable Care Act is a success because more than a million people signed up for insurance coverage who didn’t previously have health insurance.

A story from the New York Post reminds us that being covered by insurance isn’t the same as receiving health care, however. Margaret Figueroa, 49 (at right), was forced off the insurance plan she chose by Obamacare regulations. She found new coverage on New York’s state-run Obamacare exchange. She was assured it covered her doctors and medications. She found out otherwise at the pharmacy.

“Figueroa — who has a neurological disorder — said she enrolled in a new EmblemHealth insurance program in February as required under the Affordable Care Act. And that’s when her problems began.

“After paying her premium, she received a temporary ID card. But when she went to order medication, the pharmacists said her name wasn’t in the system. And she said her doctors were not included in her new medical plan.

“ ‘They just don’t have enough doctors. Two of them are full to capacity, and the others aren’t even in my radius. There are some who don’t even speak English,’ the Arden Heights resident said during a press conference with Staten Island Rep. Michael Grimm.”

Figueroa told the Staten Island Advance that only six doctors in her borough are in her new plan’s network. Grimm, meanwhile, told the paper that at least a dozen other constituents have told of similar “narrow network” problems.

“We didn't solve anything (with Obamacare), all we did was destroy a good thing,” said Grimm.

The lack of in-network doctors is a widely-reported problem with Obamacare-compliant plans. It isn’t a mistake: Including few doctors and cutting out top-ranked hospitals is how Obamacare means to control costs.

But Americans have a right to ask: What good is getting new coverage if it doesn’t let you actually get health care?

Photo: Kristy Leibowitz, New York Post