I was up late last night watching Healthcare pass! So exciting*! In this political climate (read: people grandstanding instead of working towards compromise) getting it done in 14 months is really admirable. Here are some of the immediate changes:
- Prohibit pre-existing condition exclusions for children in all new plans;
- Provide immediate access to insurance for uninsured Americans who are uninsured because of a pre-existing condition through a temporary high-risk pool;
- Prohibit dropping people from coverage when they get sick in all individual plans;
- Lower seniors’ prescription drug prices by beginning to close the donut hole;
- Offer tax credits to small businesses to purchase coverage;
- Eliminate lifetime limits and restrictive annual limits on benefits in all plans;
- Require plans to cover an enrollee’s dependent children until age 26;
- Require new plans to cover preventive services and immunizations without cost-sharing;
- Ensure consumers have access to an effective internal and external appeals process to appeal new insurance plan decisions;
- Require premium rebates to enrollees from insurers with high administrative expenditures and require public disclosure of the percent of premiums applied to overhead costs (Source: Huffington Post).
I read some of those and still seem incredulous that some of these things have been allowed in a “developed” country**.
*I’m a liberal progressive so I am disappointed that there isn’t a public option (and I would rather single-payer) but I’m choosing to see incremental change as a positive development instead of dwelling on what we didn’t get.
**I don’t want abortion rates to increase (and I don’t think they will since free abortion was already available to many) but I think ignoring the plight of millions of people like my sister, who can’t get the one medication for her illness despite being “insured,” in name of a single issue is ignorant. Worse yet, it is a smoke screen for the real reasons republicans don’t want HCR: $$ and big business. Don’t think insurance isn’t big business. For those of us that want to save unborn babies – get off your butts and advocate for women and babies and families rather than further limiting choices. I don’t recall Jesus marching on Rome. I do recall him teaching about love and hope: Matthew 5.
*** I need a footnote program like Arwyn.
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