Saturday, March 06, 2010

Weekly Address: What Health Reform Will Deliver – This Year

Weekly Address: What Health Reform Will Deliver – This Year: "

In this week’s address, President Obama describes how American families will have more control over their health care this year, after health reform passes.



Here are a few more points about how health insurance reform measures will benefit Americans this year:



Hold Insurance Companies Accountable:



Eliminate lifetime limits and restrictive annual limits on benefits in all new plans;
Prohibit rescissions of health insurance policies in all individual plans;
Prohibit pre-existing condition exclusions for children in all new plans;
Require premium rebates to enrollees from insurers with high administrative expenditures and require public disclosure of the percent of premiums applied to overhead costs;
Establish a process for the annual review of unreasonable increases in premiums, requiring State insurance commissioners to work with the HHS Secretary and States.

Protect Consumers:



Provide grants to States to support health insurance consumer assistance and ombudsman programs to help consumers;
Ensure consumers have access to an effective internal and external appeals process to appeal new insurance plan decisions;
Require all insurance plans to use uniform coverage documents so consumers can make easy comparisons when shopping for health insurance;
Establish an internet portal to assist Americans in identifying coverage options;
Prohibit insurers from discriminating in favor of highly compensated employees by charging them lower premiums.

Ensure Affordable Choices and Quality Care:



Provide immediate access to insurance for uninsured Americans who are uninsured because of a pre-existing condition through a temporary high-risk pool;
Create a temporary re-insurance program for early retirees;
Require new plans to cover an enrollee’s dependent children until age 26;
Require new plans to cover preventive services and immunizations without cost-sharing;
Offer tax credits to small businesses to purchase coverage;
Facilitate administrative simplification to lower health system costs."

No comments: