Obamacare + 2

From Yahoo:

"Obama’s health care law passed 2 years ago, but where are we now?"

It seems like President Barack Obama's controversial health care reform law has been fodder for Republican swipes and grievances for ages. And it sort of has. Wednesday marks the two-year anniversary of the House narrowly squeezing through health care reform, which the Supreme Court will begin reviewing next week before deciding on its legality sometime this summer. The law was quickly challenged by states' attorneys general, while congressional Republicans vowed to "repeal and replace" it. The new regulation also galvanized the tea party movement, which was credited with changing the political landscape and driving home a Republican-swinging 2010 midterm election. But since then, the public demonstrations have quieted, in part because the most controversial aspects of the law will not go into effect until 2014. The popular consumer-protection parts of the law were intentionally front-loaded.

Already in effect

- Insurance companies have already submitted to new rules, which will prevent them from setting a "lifetime limit" on benefits for any of their paying customers. They can't refuse to cover children who have preexisting conditions or kick off kids from their parents' plans until they reach 26 years old.

- Seniors who reached the Medicare part D prescription coverage gap received extra money for drugs, small businesses that insure their employees qualified for new tax credits, and about 50,000 adults with preexisting conditions who have been denied coverage in the past joined a new high-risk pool created by the law. (And by 2014, insurance companies won't be able to deny coverage to sick adults.)

What's coming this year

- By this coming August, insurance plans must offer contraception to women without a co-pay. It's part of a list of preventative services, like cholesterol screening, that the law says must be given without cost sharing.

- One of the most popular components of the health care law (according to a Kaiser Family Foundation tracking poll) is set to go into effect this fall, when health care plans will have to publish a uniform, easy-to-understand description of their benefits so that customers can comparison-shop.

- But all the major provisions roll out in 2014, when Medicaid will be expanded to cover most low-income people (defined as a family of four making $30,657 or less each year) under 65. Employers of more than 50 people will be fined if they don't provide health insurance to their employees, while people who don't qualify for the expanded Medicaid but aren't offered insurance from their job can buy from state insurance exchanges. People who are living at up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level will receive subsidies or tax cuts to buy insurance from the exchanges.

- Insurance companies won't be allowed to turn down anyone who is already sick, and won't be allowed to charge higher premiums based on a customer's gender. The law also sets guidelines for what insurance plans must cover and imposes new fees on the industry.

- The very last change is a tax on "luxury" health care plans that will go into effect in 2018. Insurers that offer plans costing $10,200 or more will face the tax.

^ The main item that I still do not think is right (or constitutional) is the part that says that every American will have to have health insurance or be fined. It is one thing for Obama to say that every American has to have health insurance and then does what most Western countries do and pay for it using government funds, but to force everyone to have it and then punish them with fines is just plain stupid. If people who don't have health insurance could afford to pay for it then I think they would and giving them a fine doesn't help the situation. I hope the Supreme Court turns down at least this part of Obamacare, but since most of them are ultra-liberals I don't think they will. That leaves two other chances: for Congress to repeal it or for a new President to be elected this November and repeal it (I hope Congress repeals it before November and then we get a new President.) ^

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/obama-health-care-law-passed-two-years-ago-165930385.html