On March 23, 2010, the federal healthcare reform legislation was
passed. All of the legislation’s provisions are being enacted in
phases through 2014. Below is a list of all of the components of
healthcare reform that impact consumers from 2011 until 2013.
2011
Seniors who reach the coverage gap will receive a 50 percent
discount when buying Medicare Part D covered brand-name
prescription drugs. Over the next 10 years, seniors will receive
additional savings on brand-name and generic drugs until the
coverage gap is closed in 2020. Download
a brochure to learn more.
The law provides certain free preventive services, such as
annual wellness visits and personalized prevention plans for
seniors on Medicare.
The Community Care Transitions Program will help high-risk
Medicare beneficiaries who are hospitalized avoid unnecessary
readmissions by coordinating care and connecting patients to
services in their communities.
2012
The law creates a voluntary long-term care insurance
program–called CLASS–to provide cash benefits to adults who
become disabled.
Confused about how the new health reform law really works? This
short, animated movie –
featuring the “YouToons” — explains the problems with the
current health care system, the changes that are happening now,
and the big changes coming in 2014. Learn more about how the
health reform law will affect the health insurance coverage
options for individuals, families and businesses with the
interactive feature “Illustrating Health Reform: How Health
Insurance Coverage Will Work.”
The federal legislation known as the Affordable Care Act was signed into law in March 2010. The law is designed to help millions of Americans obtain health insurance coverage. Under the new law, everyone must have health insurance. The reforms will cover more people and offer more benefits - more children will get coverage, elimination of lifetime limits and most annual limits on care, and gives many more people access to preventive healthcare services.
[The week of October 17, 2011], I discussed what various tax
proposals could mean for you. But tax reform isn’t the only big
policy area that could affect your finances over the next few
years. What about the health care plan that was actually passed
last year and is primarily scheduled to take effect in 2014? We
recently received a question on our web site about the effects of
the plan.
Let’s start by looking at some of the changes that impact
everyone. Insurers have been prohibited from imposing lifetime
limits on essential benefits and can’t drop you when you get
sick. In 2014, there will also be no annual spending caps in
policies.
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius explains
how to navigate the new HealthCare.gov Web site on the Affordable
Care Act, including the health insurance finder.
Californians who don’t have health insurance through work and
can’t afford to buy it themselves can find themselves negotiating
a maze of government-subsidized programs.
They might qualify for Medi-Cal, the state’s version of the
federal Medicaid program. They might be classified as a Medically
Indigent Adult, or MIA, depending on what county they live in and
what the income requirements of that county are, and get limited
health care services.
Three new maternity coverage laws were passed this year in
California, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the people who need
that coverage will get it, according to experts who gathered at a
recent meeting in the Capitol Building.
“Just passing a new law we found isn’t enough,” according to
Jenya Cassidy of the California Work and Family Coalition, which
co-sponsored the event. “It’s also really important that you need
to empower people to use the rights they have.”
According to Cassidy, many women of reproductive age who qualify
for services and protections under California law aren’t aware of
them.
Earlier this year, the governor signed three maternity-related
bills. AB 210 by Roger Hernandez (D-West Covina) and SB 222 by
Noreen Evans (D-Santa Rosa) require new insurance policies to
provide maternity coverage.
Expect a tumultuous 2012 for health care, as more elements of the
federal overhaul kick in, the Supreme Court considers the
constitutionality of parts of the law and state budget cuts
continue.
The federal Affordable Care Act will continue to roll out
programs as it heads toward full implementation in 2014. The
signature health care legislation of the Obama administration,
the law is aimed at cutting the rising cost of care, improving
quality, and expanding medical coverage to 90 percent of the
population.
Riverside County officials recently said they already have
enrolled 2,700 residents from about 16,000 applications for the
new Riverside County HealthCare insurance plan for low-income,
uninsured residents who do not qualify for Medi-Cal, HealthyCal
reports.
In a cavernous room just east of San Francisco, an army of phone
operators fields calls from their customers. A large computer
screen blinks the number of people on hold: two, and the average
wait time: one minute, 12 seconds.
These phone operators working in a non-descript office park in
Alameda are employed by a large health insurance plan, and
they’re willing to go the extra mile for their customers. They’ll
schedule a doctor to come to your home, a pharmacist to drop off
a prescription, and they’ll even help you fill out an application
for food stamps.
The Children’s Partnership “blueprint for reform” released this
week marks an important milestone in the formation of
California’s Health Benefit Exchange, according to Kristen Golden
Testa, health director of the Children’s Partnership.
“The [Health Benefit] Exchange board did a lot of work on the
visioning process, figuring out what they wanted the exchange to
be like,” Golden Testa said. “This offers a road map to get to a
lot of the visioning pieces.”
Hundreds of bills approved by the Legislature and signed by the
governor take effect with the start of the new year, including
laws banning minors from using tanning beds, raising the age that
children must use car booster seats and prohibiting the open
carrying of handguns.
The Legislature’s work in the last year resulted in 745 new laws,
though some already have gone into effect while others will be
fully enacted in future years. In 2010, there were 733 laws
enacted. Both years saw significantly fewer new laws than in the
past few decades.
Nearly two years after the passage of the federal health law,
more than 40 percent of people say they know little or nothing
about how the law will affect them, according to the Kaiser
Family Foundation’s latest monthly health tracking poll,
published in December. That figure hasn’t budged since
April 2010, just after the law was signed.
Jonathan Gruber, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, aims to change that with a book, “Health Care Reform:
What It Is, Why It’s Necessary, How It Works,” that explains the
ins and outs of the law in an innovative way: an adult
comic-strip form similar to graphic novels.
A panel of Inland-area doctors Thursday [January
5,2012] explained to residents the benefits and shortcomings
of the federal health care law that is to go into effect in 2014.
The group gathered for the forum, “What is the Best Medicine for
America?” held at the UC Riverside Extension.
A middle-aged man arrives at Highland Hospital in Oakland
clutching his chest. A woman in a wheelchair is rushed to the
emergency department with an infection that has flared up again.
Neither has insurance.
It’s a scenario that plays out every day at Highland, the
flagship facility of the Alameda County Medical Center, a network
of hospitals and clinics that are the safety-net provider for 1.5
million Alameda County residents.
The scenario is set to change in 2014 when a provision of federal
health care reform kicks in: Ten percent of the currently
uninsured people in Alameda County could gain coverage either
through the government-funded Medi-Cal insurance or through a
private carrier.
Hoping to establish new programs before Medi-Cal
takes over in 2014, it plans to register as many as 550,000
patients and assign them to medical clinics for free
services.
In one of the largest expansions of health coverage to the
uninsured, Los Angeles County is enrolling hundreds of thousands
of residents in a publicly funded treatment program and setting
the stage for the national healthcare overhaul.
The county hopes to register as many as 550,000 patients and is
assigning them to medical clinics for services at no cost to
them. At the same time, the county is transforming its healthcare
system to be less focused on acute care and more on primary care.
The changes are expected to reduce costs, streamline care and
attract patients.
The Obama administration and Republican state attorneys both
petition the high court to hand down a ruling early next
year.
Reporting from Washington— The constitutional clash over
President Obama’s national healthcare law moved closer to the
Supreme Court on Wednesday [Sept. 26, 2011], when both the
administration and Republican state attorneys separately asked
the justices to hand down a verdict early next year.
California, a model for healthcare reform, is seeking to impose
some of the toughest limits on government-subsidized coverage. If
approved, the limits could herald deep Medicaid cuts nationwide.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. When Democrats front-loaded
the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act with consumer
protections set to kick in six weeks before Election Day, they
never imagined that health care reform would still be so
unpopular. The newest reliable poll on public opinion on the new
law, sponsored by the Associated Press, shows that 40% of
Americans oppose the new law, with 30% saying they have no
opinion and just 30% favoring it.
