Considering that after reading about what health care will mean to the average American for some long and sometimes painful-for-my-brain hours, I still needed a few days to let it sort of work itself out into an understandable thinking process in my mind before I could start to write about it. In other words, I had to walk around the writer’s block. 50 times.
And now, with my brain sore and achy, I think I may be entering that area where one becomes numb and things just flow through, and how they end up on here is what I’ll keep, with references for you if you need them.
So you’ve fuzzily heard a lot of numbers and people yelling over one another on the blessings and TERRIBLE EVILS of this bill, but just want to know what it means for you. Before we go through that though, I’ll let you know some basics that I found interesting.
1. Medical costs are currently rising at twice the rate of inflation.
2. The reason insurance premiums are rising is not in most cases due to price gouging but because the actual prices of healthcare is rising at an unstoppable rate.
3. The most expensive insurance plans (known as Cadillac plans) will be taxed.
Important Facts:
1. Most of the significant changes won’t take place for the 32 million Americans until 2014
2. Expected to decrease the Federal Deficit by $124 billion in the next 10 years
3. A big part of the reason why healthcare costs are so expensive are because the uninsured wait until they are very sick and have to be treated in the E.R. where prices are astronomical. If the uninsured become insured, they may be treated sooner and in a much less costly way.
The 5 Immediate Effects:
1. It allows anyone up to the age of 26 to be covered by their parents’ insurance – some are already doing it although it is not required until September. If you are covered by your employer, you are not eligible =/ - at least not until 2014
2. All new private insurance will cover 100% of preventive services with no co-pay. Existing plans (either self-paid or by employer) are not required to do this though.
3. No more lifetime limits, meaning that insurance companies cannot put a cap on reimbursements for a policy or patient – there ARE annual caps though, until 2014.
4. If you are high-risk, meaning you have a pre-existing condition, aging, or are expected to get ill, money has been pooled to subsidize your insurance, although it will still be fairly expensive. Children with pre-existing conditions also fall under this category.
5. For small businesses of under 25 people and under $50,000 average salary, insurance expenses may be given tax credits of up to 35%.
So there you have it… The easy way to figure out how the healthcare reform will affect you immediately =)
-Co-Opera-
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