BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

I was driving in to work this morning and listening to WTOP, the news radio station, with traffic on the eights, and I was stuck in terrible traffic.

Go figure.

But I was sitting there in the traffic, waiting for the traffic news to come on at 8 minutes after the hour, and I heard the latest story about Obamacare.

No, it wasn’t about the government shutting down over Republicans objections to Obamacare. It was about Obamacare itself.

And as it turns out, according to WTOP news radio, Obamacare is going to be a nightmare if you happen to want to actually get health care with your new health care law.

I couldn’t write down exactly what the news reader said, because I was driving (albeit very slowly), but it was something along these lines: First, you won’t be able to go see your own doctor, because it is unlikely your doctor will be in network. Two, it would take you up to a year to get a doctor’s appointment because there won’t be very many doctor’s in your network. Three, if you want to see a specialist, it will cost you beaucoup bucks, because it is highly unlikely a specialist will be in the network.

The good news, according to WTOP News radio, is that your premiums probably won’t go up as much as previously thought.

Well, that must be comforting.

The New York Times had a nice little story on this today. Here is how they put it: Federal officials often say that health insurance will cost consumers less than expected under President Obama’s health care law. But they rarely mention one big reason: many insurers are significantly limiting the choices of doctors and hospitals available to consumers.

From California to Illinois to New Hampshire, and in many states in between, insurers are driving down premiums by restricting the number of providers who will treat patients in their new health plans.

When insurance marketplaces open on Oct. 1, most of those shopping for coverage will be low- and moderate-income people for whom price is paramount. To hold down costs, insurers say, they have created smaller networks of doctors and hospitals than are typically found in commercial insurance. And those health care providers will, in many cases, be paid less than what they have been receiving from commercial insurers.

Welcome to government run health care.

Big Labor is starting to wake up to an uncomfortable reality. They will lose their Cadillac health care plans because of Obamacare. They want a carve-out because they know that their union members will turn against Obama as soon as they find out that they can no longer see their doctor because of Obamacare.

But how can Obama give a carve out to Big Labor and Big Business without giving a carve out to the rest of the American people?

He can’t and that’s what has him in a pickle.

Obamacare will sharply restrict your choice of doctors, and if you go outside of the Obamacare network, you won’t be able to see your doctor without paying through the nose.

In two weeks, the Obamacare exchanges are supposed to start up, and with that introduction, we will soon be on our way to government run health care.

My prediction is that the ACA will collapse under its own weight. Republicans don’t have to shut down the government in order to achieve its goal of stopping Obamacare, nor do they have to default on our debts.

Let the President’s plan go forward and let the American people spread the message that it simply won’t work for them.

Editor’s Note: John Feehery worked for former House Speaker Dennis Hastert and other Republicans in Congress. Feehery is president of Quinn Gillespie Communications. He is a contributor to The Hill’s Pundits Blog and blogs at thefeeherytheory.com.