Opinions expressed are those of the poster and not necessarily the Sonoma County Young Democrats.

Monday, March 22, 2010

What is Health Care Reform?

With the passage of the historic Health Care Reform Bill yesterday many people are questioning what exactly is included in the bill. Here is a breakdown:

- Pre-existing conditions will not be a reason that insurers could deny someone of insurance starting in 2014

- Medi-Cal will be expanded to include more lower-income individuals under the age of 65. Households with income up to 133 percent of the poverty level, or about $29,327 for a family of four, would be eligible.

- The Medicare prescription drug program will be changed to close the “doughnut hole”. This is a gap in coverage that affects millions of individuals. While it won’t be eliminated until 2020, there will be improvements in 2011, including a 50 percent discount on brand name drugs.

- Dependent children up to the age of 26 would be eligible for coverage under their parent’s plans.

- Eliminates lifetime dollar limits on policies.

- Prevents insurers from canceling coverage because someone gets sick.

- Immediately prevents insurers from denying coverage to children because of pre-existing conditions.

- While there is no government-run insurance plan included in this bill, there is the creation of the new state-based purchasing pools called exchanges. These will begin in 2014 and will allow for individuals to have the same purchasing power as an employee of a large company.

- Provides new investment in training programs to increase the number of primary care doctors, nurses, and public health professionals.

- Increases the funding for Community Health Centers to allow for nearly a doubling of the number of patients seen by the centers over the next 5 years.

There is a great breakdown by congressional district on what the bill includes. Here is an example using the 6th Congressional District:

- Improves coverage for 419,000 residents with health insurance

- Gives tax credits and other assistance to up to 121,000 families and 20,400 small businesses to help them afford coverage.

- Improve Medicare for 101,000 beneficiaries, including closing the donut hole.

- Extend coverage to 42,000 uninsured residents

- Guarantee that 10,000 residents with pre-existing conditions can obtain coverage.

- Provide millions of dollars in new funding for 28 community health centers.

The link to find this information is http://bit.ly/9bfzuh.

 
Clusty