What does Health Care Reform Mean for You?
Welcome to this installment of the Weekly Health Insurance News Roundup. This week we will look at one article from the New York Times entitled, "Health Care Reform and You." This is a fairly comprehensive article that covers a wide range of aspects under the proposed health care reforms that are currently moving through our legislative bodies. The article begins with the elements of the reform, such as mandates and exchanges. These mandates would ensure that everyone had health insurance coverage, or pay fines if they couldn't. Also, all but the smallest of businesses would have to provide health insurance coverage to their employees.
Covering the uninsured would come from expanding the current, already successful Medicare system and give people below a certain income level subsidies to help pay for it. This coverage would be purchased through new health insurance exchanges. These new health insurance marketplaces would include coverage from all the major health insurance companies. It's though that by expanding coverage to everyone through these marketplaces, costs will be made lower due to the higher amount of those paying into the overall pool of health insurance funds.
These reforms would also lead to tighter regulation of health insurance companies. Under the new laws, health insurance companies would have to provide "essential benefits" as part of their coverage, and prohibit companies from excluding people with pre-existing conditions. This is very good news for people who are concerned about the security of their policies. While this is good news for most people, there are those unhappy about it. People who don't want new taxes, as well as healthy young people who might not get health insurance otherwise, aren't at all happy about these proposed reforms.
However, in the face of a huge health care budget and mounting amounts of uninsured Americans, it's hard to say that nothing should be done. It'll be a long time before any of these get approve, let alone implemented. The article says 2013, and while that seems like a long way off, at least it gives folks who want insurance, more secure insurance, or cheaper health insurance a light at the end of the tunnel.
