Obamacare and Cancer. It ain't pretty.

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Some of America's best cancer hospitals are off-limits to many of the people now signing up for coverage under the nation's new health care program.

Doctors and administrators say they're concerned. So are some state insurance regulators. An Associated Press survey found examples coast to coast.

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Before President Barack Obama's health care law, a cancer diagnosis could make you uninsurable. Now, insurers can't turn away people with health problems or charge them more. Lifetime dollar limits on policies, once a financial trap-door for cancer patients, are also banned. The new obstacles are more subtle.

To keep premiums low, insurers have designed narrow networks of hospitals and doctors. The government-subsidized private plans on the exchanges typically offer less choice than Medicare or employer plans. By not including a top cancer center an insurer can cut costs.

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The legislation contains provisions that directly target patients with cancer because their care is perceived as costly. These policies couldn’t be more badly timed.

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Insurers are barred from using the other tools that they’ve traditionally employed to keep the costs of policies in check: cost sharing, underwriting risk, adjusting premiums and benefits. The only thing that health plans are permitted to do under Obamacare is narrow the networks of providers that they contract with. So that’s precisely what they’re doing. By contracting with fewer providers, insurers can cheapen their coverage by clamping down on what doctors prescribe.

This will hit cancer patients especially hard.

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