Politics

Health Insurance Reform: Immediate Benefits vs. the Cost of Inaction

By Karina

Congress is taking the final steps to pass comprehensive health insurance reform to ensure all Americans have access to affordable, high quality care. There are a number of provisions that will take effect immediately available to American workers, their families and small businesses ? the President referenced these in his weekly address to the nation on Saturday:

Tax credits for small business owners who purchase health insurance

Bans insurance companies from dropping your coverage when you get sick

Insurance companies will no longer be able to deny coverage to children with pre-existing conditions

No more lifetime limits or restrictive annual caps on benefits

Free preventive care in all new private plans

Young people will be able to stay on their parents? insurance policy until their 26th birthday

Seniors with high prescription drug costs who find themselves in the prescription drug “donut hole” will receive $250 to help pay for prescriptions (and eventually the donut hole will be eliminated)

A new independent appeals process for those who feel they have unfairly been denied an insurance claim

As The New York Times wrote in an editorial this weekend, “the fact is that the health care system is broken for far too many Americans. And the country cannot afford the status quo.” Failure is not an option. It is not an option for the millions of uninsured Americans, not for the small business owners struggling to offer health insurance benefits to their employees, not for families unable to meet the rising monthly premiums and high deductibles, and not for the seniors with skyrocketing prescription drug costs:

46.3 million Americans were uninsured in 2008 ? up from 38.4 million in 2000. Numbers for 2009 are likely to be significantly higher as a result of the economic crisis that left many workers jobless and tightened the pocketbooks of families and businesses across the country.

According to a recent employer health benefit survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research and Educational Trust, 40% of workers in small firms with health insurance coverage pay an annual deductible of $1,000 or more for single coverage.

Health care spending ? projected to be 17.6% of GDP this year ? is expected to exceed one-fifth of the GDP (20.3%) by 2018.

The reform bill will result in lower overall prescription drug costs for seniors, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office. Right now, evidence suggests the donut hole coverage gap reduces seniors? use of drugs prescribed by their doctor by an average of 14%, posing a real health threat to seniors who simply cannot afford the drugs.

Full post as published by The Gavel on March 08, 2010 (boomark / email).