Wednesday, March 24, 2010

32 million Americans are currently uninsured.

Overview health care reform bill
Purchase insurance from anywhere or pay either $750 or 2% of their income, whichever is greater. Exemptions would be granted for those in financial hardship which is measured using the poverty line.

The federal government regulation would make plans provide a minimum of amount of benefits but not a maximum. It would also implement consumer protections and an appeals process for consumers who want to dispute the decisions of their insurance companies on individual coverage.
Plan can not discriminate based on pre-existing exclusions, must spend a high percentage of their premiums on actual care (around 80%), and that they follow certain consumer protection laws. In addition plans could no longer limit how much costs they are willing to cover. In the past insurance companies would be able to limit their liability to $300,000 for example and stop paying once that limit was reached.

Businesses with less than 50 employees would be exempted from providing coverage.Small businesses would be allowed to join forces in order to purchase insurance for their employees. In other words five small businesses could all negotiate with an insurance company together in order to get a lower rate as big businesses currently do.

Overall the bill was projected to save a little over $100 billion in the first ten years of its existence and well over $700 billion after that. Those projections were done by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.

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