ObamaCare was supposed to offer more choices — but New Yorkers shopping for medical coverage stand to be shut out of two of the city’s most prestigious hospitals.
Only three of the nine plans being offered on the New York State Health Exchange cover bills at NYU and New York-Presbyterian medical centers, The Post has learned.
Those who opt for the other six plans will either have to go elsewhere or pay steep out-of-pocket costs, officials said.
Records show that New York-Presbyterian, the largest hospital system in the nation with 2,236 beds, is an in-network choice only for the United, Emblem and Aetna plans when chosen through the exchange.
The New York University system, which as 1,069 beds at its main Langone medical facility as well as its Hospital for Joint Diseases, has deals with Affinity, Fidelis and United, and for individuals with Oxford-United for small groups.
NYU and New York-Presbyterian continue to accept most commercial health insurance that is not regulated by ObamaCare.
“It’s a desperate attempt by the insurance companies to try to keep premiums down under ObamaCare. The only way to do that is to cut the number of hospitals patients can see use,” said Josh Archambault of the Foundation for Government Accountability.
Anthony Feliciano, director of the watchdog Commission on Public Health Systems, worries that the neediest New Yorkers will have the least choices, a medical network version of red-lining.
“If hospitals want to the limit the number of health plans they accept,” he said, “they’re limiting the population that goes to the hospital.”
Brooks White, a property and casualty insurance lawyer from the Prospect Park section of Brooklyn who is considering enrolling in ObamaCare next year, called for an overhaul of the system.
“My wife uses NYU. I wrote to my state senator. My issue is that all the hospitals really should be participating at every level of the plans,” White said.
“If you don’t have a deep supply, you have nothing. It’s a false promise.”
For its part, NYU defended its participation in just three plans as a prudent decision in the untested ObamaCare market,
“Since exchanges are new to the market place and no one knows how they will work out, we decided to take a semi-conservative approach to participate with selection plans that met specific criteria,” said NYU spokeswoman Lisa Greiner.
Greiner said the insurers NYU contracted with have extensive experience in the individual and small-group markets and strong records in resolving enrollment and payment issues.
NYU also said it decided to “walk away” from insurers that wanted to include the hospital but not its doctors in “limited networks.”
She said the hospital concluded quality of care would be “jeopardized” if it couldn’t connect patients to doctors for follow-up care following an emergency admission or surgery.
Presbyterian declined requests for comment.
Patients who go to a hospital that is not in their plan face steep out-of-pockets costs of as much as 40 percent of the entire bill.