Limited patient choice next health overhaul issue

Limited patient choice next health overhaul issue
Jocelyn Caple poses behind her desk at Frisbie Memorial Hospital, Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2013 in Rochester, N.H. Caple is a Democrat and an Obama supporter but she's worried about having to pay 30 percent more for an insurance plan that would require her family to find a new health care provider, because one of the state's insurers, Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, excludes Frisbie Memorial Hospital along with nine other of the state's 26 acute care hospitals. (AP Photo/Jim Cole)

After they get the health care website fixed, then what?

Keeping your doctors and hospitals may be the next challenge in the new insurance plans created by President Barack Obama's law.

Obama promised Americans could keep their doctors. But experts say in many states, the new plans appear to offer a narrow choice of hospitals and . Overall, it's shaping up as less choice than offered by Medicare or employer-based coverage.

Concerns are being raised from New Hampshire to Kentucky and Chicago.

The Obama administration says it's still a definite improvement for , and that the sets standards for insurers to provide adequate provider networks.

Experts say narrow networks are part of the economic trade-off for keeping premiums under control.

© 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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