The “Prior Authorization” Battle in Raleigh

Forces are juxtaposed against each other.

The North Carolina Medical Society and its allies are advocating to regulate and limit insurance requirements to obtain prior authorizations for the provision of certain types of health care. The Carolina Partnership for Reform, among others, is arguing against it.

As a physician who owns a medical practice, I have seen the mammoth growth in prior authorization requirements over the last 25 years. It is a major burden for medical practices and other health care organizations because the process can be extremely time-consuming and cumbersome.

I also understand and appreciate the desire to restrain costs and spending on health care.

But let’s look at the bigger picture.

Over the last 80 years, we have seen the harmful impact of government incentivizing third party payment for health care. That means someone other than the patient or the patient’s family is paying for care. That agenda has led to an explosion in costs.

The Republicans have made some half-hearted efforts to limit this impact over the years, but they were completely bulldozed by the socialists on Obamacare. In some cases, they have been outright complicit with the socialists. Consider, for instance, the passage of Medicaid expansion in North Carolina last year.

Let’s be frank. Obamacare made the situation worse– not better– even though the claim was that healthcare would be more affordable after it passed. Precisely the opposite turned out to be true.

The battle in Raleigh over prior authorization pits the payers of health care costs against patients and health care “providers”. It is a small-scale dramatization of the results of the corrupt Uniparty in action, creating an absolute mess and causing other people to deal with the consequences.