Saturday, July 20, 2013

will health care reform really work for everyone? | an update

Following the post, all we want is health care that works for everyone | yet another reason I like the Affordable Care Act, a friend responded on Facebook asking, "Will it really work for everyone??" To which I responded:
It certainly is being designed to work for everyone. Off the top of my head, so far:
- We're seeing increased transparency in the wide range that health care providers have been charging us for the same services, which levels the playing field for everyone 
- We can choose to keep our adult children on our insurance till they're 26 
- We can get annual check ups, including women's reproductive health exams and screening at no charge 
- No one can be denied insurance or dropped from coverage because of a preexisting medical condition - Insurers are required to spend at least 80 percent of our premiums on actual health care services or rebate the difference — last year [2012] those rebates amounted to about half a billion dollars back in people's pockets 
And starting in January, insurance exchanges will enable us to get quality healthy coverage at reasonable prices even if we don't have employers who contribute as part of a benefits package. The first-stage introduction of the California insurance exchange looks really good (I wrote about that here, with links to the state exchange information). I'm eager to see the details as they roll out a few weeks from now. 
All that to say, based on what we've already seen in the early phases of the plan, I don't see any reason to think it won't work for everyone.

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