The health-reform law is changing the health-insurance marketplace in big ways. The first changes—those that happen right away—take effect Sept. 23, 2010, six months after the health-reform bill was signed.,, Consumer Reports offers a free health-insurance guide [.pdf] to how the new law affects you.
If you get health insurance through work, your coverage will likely remain pretty much the same, but with some new consumer protections. Lifetime caps on coverage are banned, for example, and insurers will have to adopt new procedures allowing workers to appeal coverage denials.
According to the new Patient’s Bill of Rights insurers can no longer do the following: Cancel your coverage if you get sick; set lifetime limits on coverage; put annual dollar limits on coverage (this is phased in over three years); deny coverage to children under age 19 who have pre-existing conditions; and impose barriers to or refuse to pay for emergency care even if it’s at a hospital outside the insurer’s network.
Young adults can stay on their parents’ insurance plans until age 26 instead of being taken off when they graduate from high school or college. Also, if you have been uninsured for six months and have a pre-existing medical condition, you can apply for coverage through new high-risk pools being set up in each state. The program will last until 2014, when other options kick in and insurers cannot discriminate on the basis of health status.
Small firms don’t have the bargaining clout big companies do, and they can be vulnerable to stiff premium hikes if a single employee needs expensive care. Thus, they often pay more for health insurance. Starting this year, businesses with up to 25 workers and average wages per worker up to $50,000 per year can get tax credits to offset the cost of insuring their employees…
Starting in 2011 states will be responsible for enhanced review of health-insurance company rate increase requests. Also, insurers will have to spend 80 to 85 cents out of every premium dollar on medical care. If they don’t, they have to rebate the extra amount to consumers.
I suggest you download the brochure – via the link up top — and find out what you’re supposed to hate and fear. This week.
@1 – I have to correct my response.
Just found out, this morning, my premium is going down – not up.
Har!
@ #100, Alfie,
At lease I know I’m doomed under Obamacare, that’s better than you…
And how can you be doomed? Can you point to one part of the bill that actually hurts you? Not some perceived thing Hannity or Limpdick have been ranting about. Some part of the bill that actually will hurt you.
Smarter minds await while you find something.
#102 Because of past racial injustice its only fair blacks and other oppressed and exploited minorities receive a double portion of whatever is available.
In other words, the same remedies society applies when graduating, hiring, or employing minorities, logically apply when dispensing the limited resources available to the elderly.
Liberals have sown the wind, they will reap the whirlwind…and they should rejoice when that happens, its only fair.
“hiring, or employing”, I meant “hiring, or contracting.”
Minority business are always granted preferential treatment.
Reparation for past injustice logically exists when allocating the limited medical resources available to the community.
There should be a check off on every medical questinaire, for Liberals…so they can donate whatever medical help they might have recieved, to an undocumented American, African or Mexican, so they can go off into eternity confident they have done their part.
“Eidheard is a tool of the leftists, and does not live in the United States. So, he is irrelevant.”
My God! Have we outsourced treason?
#103, Alfie,
You have posted some nonsensical replies in the past. This is among the worst. You are afraid oppressed minorities may get equality is the reason you are against the Affordable Health Care Act.
You are not only a bigot but a racist too.
#106 Realist. Liberal doctrine of Reparations, “we owe them,” manifests itself everywhere in affirmative action and racial preferences.
To suppose that principle will be not apply to health care is irrational.
It will be seen as bigotry to not apply it in health care.
#105–Somebody==thanks for the laugh. Very clever.
#91
WHY is ANYONE against every citizen of the US having health care provided to them?
Every citizen does have health care of some variety. If you in an accident, with or without health insurance, the hospital is obligated to treat you. What everyone does not have is health care cost coverage of some sort.
Every citizen is allowed to drive paved roads.
Every citizen is allowed potable water.
It is not true is that everyone is allowed to drive paved roads for free. You must have a driver’s license and you must be driving a car that meets base safety standards. In general, that also means you can afford to own a vehicle including fuel costs. Thus, people that drive paved roads pay extra for that privilege; it is not a right. Similarly, while potable water that you find in the mountains is free, if you want it delivered to your place of residence it is most definitely not free.
#109 Every citizen does have health care ..If you in an accident..the hospital is obligated to treat you…
Oh goodie, another Republitard excuse for not needing healthcare reform – why, it’s already there!
The medical industry’s dream come true – maximize profits with emergency care. Republitards forget to see much real-estate taxes go to hospitals to treat the insurance free sheeple.
#109–Thomas==really! Don’t confuse/conflate/mislead/wrongly think that EMERGENCY CARE is healthcare. Over 50% of what becomes EMERGENCY CARE IN EXTREMIS is the lack of cheaper healthcare not delivered at an earlier stage.
That said, Dallas trumps me once again with the better phrased position. Whats up Dallas? Getting a good 8 hours sleep a night, or just better with practice?
“Why is it acceptable for the government to provide these services but NOT health care to all?”
The people voted for government to deliver water.
The people ratified the constitution that guaranteed a national defense.
Not every citizen is allowed to drive on paid roads. The people voted that it was a privilege, not a right.
Not all food is inspected. Only random samples are inspected.
The lack of price discovery is the primary obstacle to affordable, expandable health care services. The people vote in favor of price discovery every day. We need more of it. Not less of it. Insurance is Rube Goldberg device to ration health care services.
“I’d be interested to know how many of the people arguing so passionately about the new health care provisions, both pro and con, have actually read the bill. An uninformed opinion on any subject is empty and without validity.”
I’m in a generous mood. Has a Congress ever lowered the cost and expanded the coverage of any scarce resource without the use of coercion?
You can choose any government from the history of the world.
“Insurance companies, hospitals, and specialists are the ones making the money, AND huge profits”
AND? It’s a rough going to profit handsomely from the merry band of child consumption. A whole 3.6 cents on the dollar in FY09. One day the insurance companies might strike gold and reorganize as beer distributors to hit 28.3 cents on every dollar while killing the children and their parents.
“Can you point to one part of the bill that actually hurts you?”
The penalty for not carrying insurance. I don’t need it. I don’t want it. I’ll be forced to pay a find. But I’ll bet you I get that clause overturned in the courts with a first amendment defense.
#110
Oh goodie, another left wing, economically clueless liberal that thinks that no one but them wants for health care reform. Given Bobbo’s comment, I’m think you need more sleep.
#111
Again, you are confusing the payment and cost of health care with the care itself.
Thomas–when’s the last time you admitted an error? Learned anything?
You are wrong. I’m not confusing anything=you are: emergency room care is NOT healthcare. One of the ways Universal Healthcare/Single Payer saves money is by getting what becomes Emergency Room Care taken care of earlier in a GP Clinic setting.
” One of the ways Universal Healthcare/Single Payer saves money is by getting what becomes Emergency Room Care taken care of earlier in a GP Clinic setting.”
Another myth. There is no data to support that claim. The ER runs round the clock with the same amount of scheduled staff as the hospital plans to need. They have on-call staff as well if needed. The lack of walk in patients won’t change that cost allocation schedule.
The only method to the madness of “saving” money on health care services is when the patient provides MOST of the proactive approach to good health. That is only accomplished with a sound education and strong at home commitment to learning and growth.
Actually emergency room care is more likely under this plan. It seems intuitive that poor people without health care are going to end up in the emergency room. However the evidence doesn’t bear that out. This is because lack of health care is not the same as lack of health insurance. Having people signed up for health insurance, without increasing the supply of providers, makes it harder to get to see a doctor as demand on the system increases. This is what leads to more people in the emergency room
http://rwjf.org/files/research/072109policysynthesis17.emergencyutilization.pdf
Look at the second page of findings. Sec 1:4 6 of 32
After adjustment for health, income
and other factors, however, ED use by the uninsured is no different from the
privately insured.
The recent growth in volume of ED utilization is driven by individuals with private
insurance, higher income, and private physicians as their usual source of care.