Health Insurance

How Health Care Reform is Trying to Change Health Insurance

Most people cannot read all 2,039 pages of the health care reform bill. Even if you could, it may be difficult to understand what it all means. Below is a summary of some of the basic changes that may affect you and your health insurance needs.

Right now, health insurance companies may not approve your application for health insurance if you have a pre-existing condition. Even if you are approved, you may have to pay a higher premium, or not be receive benefits for treatment for that pre-existing condition for a certain amount of time. The health care reform legislation will not allow health insurance companies to use pre-existing conditions to exclude, limit, or make premiums unreasonable for an individual, or their dependent. This will go into effect in 2014, so it is still a ways away, but is something that many people are probably looking forward to. This may decrease the need for some state's uninsured risk pool system, which provides health insurance for individuals that have been repeatedly turned down by health insurance companies. Until that time, the government is setting up a national risk pool, which will be of benefit to those people who do not live in the 35 states that have existing risk pools in place. Check with the National Association of State Comprehensive Health Insurance Plans to see if your state has one or not.

A current problem with health insurance policies is now occurs for young people who do not qualify as dependents any more, but may not be able to get full-time work with benefits yet. The new legislation will require insurance companies to cover dependent children who are on their parents' health insurance policies until they are age 26. Of course, there are restrictions, such as they must be claimed as dependent on their parents' taxes, and they cannot have jobs that offer health insurance. But some health insurance policies now have much younger age limits for dependent children, so this will be a big improvement in the future.

The legislation is also providing subsidies for those individuals who have to purchase their own individual health insurance policies because they do not get benefits through their work. This subsidy will dependent on your income, the size of your family, your age and other factors, and of course there are restrictions and limits.

The health care reform bill is also forcing more employers and business owners to provide health insurance for their employees. In 2014, businesses may even be fined if they do not offer a health insurance plan for their full-time workers. The employers are not required to pay all of the overall costs, and smaller businesses may be exempt from this rule. However, this will really make more and more companies provide some sort of group health insurance plan for their employees, therefore decreasing the number of Americans without health insurance.

One last area where the health care reform bill is making changes is the AARP. It is providing Medicare health insurance members access to free preventive services. It also closes the gap in Part D where Medicare has limits on prescription drugs. There may be other changes that are not beneficial to senior citizens, but there is debate regarding that.