Lately, I have heard several people talking about how bad the “The Affordable Care Act” is. So I decided to look it up and decide for myself. There are many changes occurring for the next several years but these are a few of the changes that could impact my family.
I learned that effective September 23, 2010, my current insurance company:
1. Cannot cancel my coverage if it is discovered that I accidently made a mistake, when I initially filled out my insurance paperwork.
2. Cannot deny my child insurance coverage for pre-exiting illnesses.
3. Will still cover my adult children up to age 26.
4. Cannot drop my health insurance coverage on certain treatments because my treatment costs have reached previously set lifetime limits, and
5. Will eventually phase out, over the next 3 years, what it will pay for health care.
Any new health insurance plans purchased after September 23, 2010, will be able to have preventative services without having to pay a deductible or co-payments, appeal denials for health coverage, choose their own doctor and have access to out of network emergency care and not have to pay the out of network co-pay.
So far so good for me.
But.
It’s easy to see how some might feel a little disturbed by this plan, at least in the long run. A couple of changes that sound disturbing to me, are that people who do not have health coverage will be required to pay a tax and that employers will have to pay a fine if they have 50 or more workers and do not offer a healthcare coverage.
Basically, it’s sad that we are being forced to have health insurance coverage. We are being forced to have routine health checkups that will hopefully reduce healthcare cost in the long run.
Do I think “The Affordable Care Act”, is the answer to all our health care problems, well no, but it’s a start. Right?
