Currently 32 million people in the United States without health insurance, and since I fall into that statistic I was very interested to see what our “Golden Boy” President Obama and his “crew” was going to come up with for the Health Care Reform. When all of this initially started (speaking of a public option and such) I had some averse feelings to what appeared to be coming down the pipeline. But in looking at the summary of the new Health Care Bill (let me emphasize, looking at the Summary of the Bill), I’m pleasantly surprised at what I see at first glance. It seems that rather than creating an entirely new government entity (public option), President Obama is focusing heavily on Health Insurance Reform. Some of the changes will begin as early as September of 2010, but most of the major changes will begin in 2014. Here are a few of the highlights of the Bill.
Health Insurance Reform:
- Health insurances will be forbidden from denying coverage for pre-existing conditions or charging them more
- Health insurances will be forbidden from putting lifetime limits on policies, and will be forbidden from dropping coverage when someone becomes sick
- Age that children can stay on parents on their insurance is increased to 26 years
- The uninsured and self employed wil be eligilble to purchase
- insurance on state based exchanges (*which will be addressed later in this article)
- Subsidies will be offered to families with up to 400% above the poverty level (or up to $88000/year income w a family of four)
- Separate exchanges will be created for small businesses to purchase health insurance
- Medicare prescription benfits will increase and eventually seniors will be only responsible for 25% of medication cost with additional subsidies available for this
- More generous tax credits for purchase health insurance (individual and family)
- Expansion of Medicaid to childless adults
- No mandate for business to provide employees with insurance BUT a fee if the goverment subsidizes their employees (up to $2000, and companies with 50 or fewer employees are exempt from this fee)
- Illegal Immigrants not eligible from Medicaid or state exchange
- programs for insurance even if purchased with their own monies.
- Health insurance mandate – everyone must have insurance by 2014 or face $695 annual fee (low income exceptions will be made)
In terms of the state exchange, it seems that there will be a federal Office of Personnel Management to negotiate with private insurers to provide multi-state health plans. This will allow the states to take advantage of a “wholesale” negotiation to lower the cost of the health insurance premiums. What that will mean in actual practice is still unclear to me, but I’ll go with it and see how it works.
So, the plan is not perfect, but its a strong move in the right direction in my humble opinion (as both a consumer and a physician). Health insurance reform is LONG overdue. Change is never easy, but our President has taken some tough steps and made some hard decisions with plenty of naysayers and stone casters to boot. He may flip this country upside down with all of these changes but perhaps being flipped on our royal hinies is exactly what we need to wake up!
To see more on the Health Care Reform Bill go to http://healthbill2010.info/
or
http://www.whitehouse.gov/health-care-meeting/proposal
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