Posts Tagged ‘obama’
What does Health Care Reform Mean For You?
Posted by Todd Fries | Filed under Health Insurance
Now that Obama has signed the Health Care Bill into law, what does that mean for us? When does it go into effect?
Please call to discuss any issues you may have since there’s a lot of confusion around this new bill and I’m sure many of you have questions. Below are the fundamentals of what we know, but how all these changes ultimately unfold and when, only time will tell:
- Children with pre-existing conditions can no longer be denied health insurance coverage, and adults who are uninsured because of pre-existing conditions will have access to affordable insurance through a temporary subsidized high-risk pool.
- Health care plans will allow young people to remain on their parents’ insurance policy up until their 26th birthday.
- Insurance companies will be banned from dropping people from coverage when they get sick, and they will be banned from implementing lifetime caps on coverage. (more…)
Obama’s Latest Healthcare Initiative
Posted by Todd Fries | Filed under Health Insurance
Where do we stand as of today?
President Obama has stated on numerous occasions he is not looking to “take over” or “replace” government subsidized programs such as Medicare/Medicaid. At this point he does not want to wipe out a current system of Health Care that insures over 200 million people. Even with all its flaws it is, for the most part, still working for a majority of the people. And since everyone that’s 65 automatically is eligible, its probably not as pressing a system to fix as insuring the 60 plus million who have no insurance at all.
So for starters, the president is focusing on the privatized health care system in order to decrease the vast amount of uninsured in this country. There are many parts of the current privatized Health Care system that do work, so Obama wants to build on that, in addition to offering some alternative options.
What Obama essentially wants congress to pass is “Healthcare Reform” in which every American bears responsibility for owning Health Insurance, but is provided a “hardship waiver” if they can’t afford it.
Who will qualify for that hardship waiver at this point is anyone’s guess. It will most likely bare some similarities to the government subsidized programs already in existence such as Healthy Families. Obama’s health reforms would most likely include some type of tax credits for employers as well as additional tax credits for the self-employed.
In addition, his reform would require Health Insurance companies to discontinue the practice of declining new business coverage based on pre-existing conditions. For anyone who has applied for Health Insurance in the past and was declined, this change will be well received!
Insurance carriers seem to be willing to accept this trade-off because they will have a much larger pool of applicants to insure. This is based on the current 46 million uninsured individuals that will now be “required” to obtain some form of Health Insurance. Hospitals are strongly advocating for this as well since it is more and more difficult for them to operate profitably because they are forced to absorb the costs of the uninsured.
Yet as we all know, there’s still a large and growing opposition to Obama’s Health Care Reform stating that Obama, “is stepping on individual rights by mandating coverage, expanding governments hand in the Health Care industry, and creating a pathway to socialized medicine”. Regardless, the consensus is that some type of mandate is needed to control the costs of rising Health Insurance premiums, and insure the uninsured.
The debate continues on the best and most effective method to reform Health Care. The President advices us all that the best thing to do to keep this reform moving forward is to stay informed. Therefore, I will continue to keep you updated on new developments as they come in.
