These are the immediate changes that will be happening in 2010:
• Increase age limits on dependent coverage from 22 to 25 years old to age 26.
• Ban health insurance companies from excluding coverage for pre-existing conditions for children.
• Adults with pre-existing conditions to receive coverage in high-risk pools until future health care exchanges are working.
• Out-of-pocket costs on preventive services are to be eliminated.
• Provide assistance with funding to temporary reinsurance programs for companies that offer health benefits for early retirees ages 55 to 64.
• Place new regulations on the appeals process for when health insurance claims are denied.
• Allow small businesses with fewer than 50 employees to be eligible for tax credit equal to 35 percent of premiums (increases to 50 percent by 2014).
“Over the next several years the bureaucrats, policymakers and politicians will be interpreting the legislation and determine exactly how it will be implemented,” said Benjamin Finder, a policy analyst for the Kaiser Family Foundation.
KFF is a nonprofit, private operating foundation that provides a nonpartisan source of facts, information and analysis for policymakers, the media, the health care community and the public.
In an e-mail interview, Finder expressed concerns about the complexity of the legislation and that constituents need to be heard by the politicians.
AC students paying attention to the details of the legislation are recognizing how it will affect their choices in health care.
“With the pre-existing clause that was passed, we will hopefully be able to continue with the same doctors and therapists without having to pay so much out of pocket,” said Pam Pierce, an English major.
With an autistic son and a husband struggling with a recent diagnosis, Pierce is concerned about the pre-existing clause of her current insurance coverage.
“We will for sure have to pay a higher co-pay, but that is not so bad,” Pierce said of the high-risk pool that her husband might get placed into.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will work to get 32 million uninsured Americans into some kind of affordable plan. “I don’t think it goes far enough,” said Drew Tesch, a liberal arts major. “I think that it benefits insurance companies more than the American people.”
Despite those concerns, Tesch said he is glad to see progress is being made and thinks the legislation has made some major leaps over past attempts at health care reform and affordability.
A new report from the American Journal of Medicine found that in 2007, 62 percent of declared bankruptcies were by people with staggering medical bills – even though 80 percent of them had health insurance.
About 30 percent of the nation’s young adults, normally defined as between 19 to 29, are uninsured, according to healthwatch.com.
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