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.
And higher premiums.
Yes, unfortunately if you eliminate caps your going to raise premiums.
More services performed outside of preferred providers also means higher premiums. This was another Democratic blunder rammed through without proper debate. Only time will tell what wonderful hidden stupidity was written in the health bill.
What’s that formula again?
Pro Democrat + Political = Eideard post
Premiums have been going up and were projected to do so for the foreseeable future, across the board.
#3, Do you realize what it means for a doctor to accept your insurance? Do you realize that the doctor has to PAY for the privilege of being considered a preferred provider?
Rushed and Rammed? It took the better part of a year. It includes ideas (even Republican ones) that have been discussed for 40 years. There was much debate, even if the quality of the debate often was often lowered to fear mongering BS.
Sorry Morons, this is what Obamacare gives you:
“The Government is lying about the amount of debt. It is engaging in Enron accounting,” said Laurence Kotlikoff, an economist at Boston University …
Mr Kotlikoff and Mr Moylan agree US national debt is much more than the official $US13.4 trillion number, …
Mr Kotlikoff says the debt is actually $US200 trillion.
Mr Moylan says the number is likely about $US60 trillion.
That is close to the figure quoted by David Walker, the US Comptroller General from 1998 to 2008.
He launched a campaign to convince Americans that the federal spending and debt is a greater threat than terrorism.”
http://news.com.au/business/breaking-news/us-government-hiding-true-amount-of-debt/story-e6frfkur-1225926567256#ixzz106MjZzOz
Insurers have already started dropping coverage.
http://tinyurl.com/2b3uvxh
Businesses will follow suit as costs rise.
Doctors will provide less coverage as payments are reduced.
More people paying less than the true cost means more use of service, leading to even longer waits at doctors’ offices. Having fewer doctors makes that problem even worse.
Then again, the people who pushed this plan aren’t interested in improving health care, they want to make things worse, bankrupt insurance companies, to create the political climate for government health care.
Great timing Eideard – how about some coverage on yesterday’s the Washington Post article about Obamacare forcing major health insurers to stop offering new child-only policies.
http://bit.ly/cc1B3g
I thought the dumbocrats wanted to protect the children. So they create a law that shuts down coverage.
Way to go, President Dumbo.
What many people pushed for was Universal Health Coverage for ALL, not this payoff to the Healthcare companies.
Though it does some good things, it is far from what many people wanted. It was tough to get, what with all the opposition from those who want healthcare to be a privilege, not a right.
Yes, rates go up, but they have been for quite some time now. Rates may not increase as much, as the insurance companies will have more clients than they did before this legislation.
Premiums for insurance where I work are going up 20%-30% next year, with slightly less benefits. Way to go Obamacare!
To those here that are complaining about Obamacare…
You obviously haven’t actually really needed health insurance so far. If you were to find out tomorrow that you have Leukemia you would be kissing the ground Obama walks on in about a week.
That PDF brochure looks like it was created by the same numbnuts who created the much ridiculed Andy Griffith New Health Care Law Ad.
Yes rates have be skyrocketing for the past 5 years in North Dakota with Blue Cross Blue Shield.
@#11 “Rates may not increase as much,” – according to every study rates will go 30-40% up higher than they would without OC. Don’t believe me? Listen to Obama’s own Sec. of Health and Human Services who promised literal witch hunt if any insurance company mentions that their rates are going up due to the OC… If you threaten someone with prosecution for mentioning something, you obviously don’t like that truth.
premiums might go up…. Oh No!
PREMIUMS HAD BEEN GOING UP LIKE CRAZY ALREADY !!!!! WHAT PLANET DO REPUBLITARDS AND TEATARDS LIVE ON????
Most of the ‘problems’ with the new healthcare system is that it was corrupted by the every people that are now complaining about it. Republitards wrote in the very provisions that continue to enrich the Insurance companies while making the public that they are supposed to be serving just an inconvenience to be denied as much as possible.
Republitard mantra: “Business first, America a distant second”. Some patriots.
On separate note: Since when have adults of 26 years of age become children? That is perfect example of what is wrong with OC. People are not life long infants in need of Govt. protection. Particularly at cost of others. Who knows how much of my health care premium goes to fund to provide lazy slob adults of over-18-under-26 on their parents plans.
I have Anthem Blue Cross Blue shield in VA. Last year my premium went up over 40%, this year it went up over 30%.
What we have failed in that it isn’t single payer. Moreover and worse we didn’t get a public option.
What we got is a complex (and therefore costly) answer.
The rest of the industrial world can provide healthcare for everybody for significantly less (1/2 or less), and with good or better outcomes. America fails again – even though we know health care is one of the main drivers of our future financial problems.
It remains to be seen how what we got is going to turn out. It may bring some improvements to the more egregious aspects. But it ain’t going to be cheap. It’s not simple. And corporations are going to be doing their damnedest to maximize their bottom-line with it(ie find all the holes). In doing so it’s unlikely it’s going to benefit your health.
Eideard – what should have been a fairly straightforward blog entry has been illustrated with completely unrelated and prejudicial images. I’ll bet you crap political poop that goes on to taint the sewers.
If you get health insurance through work, your coverage will likely remain pretty much the same, but with some new consumer protections.
OMG, this is OUTRAGEOUS !
I’m paying BIG money to be on Alfred’s death panel when he turns 75.
23 Dallas,
I think you could start a fund and get put at the head of the list for that one.
Now, just as an aside, wouldn’t Alfred E Newman prefer to be put down? Then he could visit Jebus in heaven and have tea while they polish their rifles… Which is in no way a euphemism for giving each other hand-jobs…
Conservatives think American’s WANT to have their coverage canceled just when they really need it.
Even weirder, Fox News has made their viewers so stupid, this is indeed the case.
Eidheard is a tool of the leftists, and does not live in the United States. So, he is irrelevant.
The majority of Americans did not want Obamacare, and the thing is a monstrosity.
Union thugs love it, and of course, they all vote left.
Fortunately, I am OK with my future medical needs, since I am going to be on Medicare in a few years. And since I paid THOUSANDS and THOUSANDS of dollars into it, I don’t need any of you swine commenting on how I am taking ADVANTAGE of Obama’s kind graces.
I see that so far, this commentary section is unsullied by that other fool, Bobbolino.
Go ahead, Bobbotool. We’re dying to hear your wisdom.
26 faxxon,
“Fortunately, I am OK with my future medical needs, since I am going to be on Medicare in a few years. And since I paid THOUSANDS and THOUSANDS of dollars into it, I don’t need any of you swine commenting on how I am taking ADVANTAGE of Obama’s kind graces.”
Well, I suppose you don’t mind anyone else enjoying the privileges of a tax payer based civil society then? I am absolutely positive you are for the expiration of the tax cuts. Good for you.
When caring for the sick members of society is seen as a burden, in fact as a rallying point by political activists and as a lobbying target by financial leaders, you need to ask other questions. You need to question society’s values.
I blame the Republicans for the Health-reform law being such a mess but I like these parts that got through.
An End To Pre-Existing Conditions
Small Business Tax Credits
Seniors Get ‘Donut Hole’ Rebate
More Young Adults Covered On Parents’ Plans
No Lifetime Caps
New Insurance Plans Must Include Preventative Care
The End Of ‘Recissions(Insurance companies cutting someone when he or she gets sick)
Transparency(Insurers must now reveal how much money is spent on overhead)
Medicare Expansion To Rural Areas
I bet lots more good stuff(great B-52s song) in it.
I was hoping for Universal Health Coverage for ALL like most first world countries seem to manage. Yea go ahead and rase my taxes for that,
paying to help your fellow humans stay healthy is the Christian thing to do. It’s what Jesus would do, you posers!
I do think the individual mandate is a requirement if dumb. Individuals who can afford health-care insurance having to purchase some is just like a tax but avoiding the word tax yes its better because you get to choose your coverage but telling people what they HAVE TO DO never goes over well iven when its for their and their countries own good.
discloser
does not claim to be a Christian and in unaffiliated with any political party .
At least there is some hope…
Watch this video. It may help you sleep tonight.
“GOP Plans ObamaCare Repeal – Wall Street Journal”
http://online.wsj.com/video/opinion-journal-gop-plans-obamacare-repeal/374DC7E4-5D80-4723-B47C-700EF4EC3FE8.html
>> Awake said, on September 21st, 2010 at 8:07 am
>> PREMIUMS HAD BEEN GOING UP LIKE CRAZY ALREADY !!!!!
When the conservatives killed healthcare reform in the 90s, the promised that no reform meant cheap, high-standard healthcare affordable to all.
What did conservative healthcare give us?
Higher and higher premiums out-of-reach to millions of Americans.
Worse, you could pay those high premiums and then get dumped after you got sick!
And the conservatives are taking to the streets to defend this horrid system.
Yes, the same RePUKES that have prevented Universal Coverage/Single Payer over the years are the ones that have prevented its birth with Obama Care: a deformed bastard that should never have been, but is the best that is allowed. So now, the shortcomings the PUKES have caused will be used to run on against the DEMS in 2012.
As in so many areas of our politics, the making of the omelet is approached as if not wanting eggs this morning: a disaster. The errors are all the result of compromise and will be corrected only by moving asap to Universal Care/Single Payer and then all the PUKES will have to complain about is no more “campaign contributions” from organized medicine.
What kind of system are we running when our politicians can’t get pay-offs to prevent everyone getting decent health care?
We need a return to the past when all healthcare was paid for by chickens and technology was what kind of stick you bit down on.
I’ve got mine-screw you. Silly/Hateful/Shortsighted Conservatives.