A Short Guide to Healthcare Reform

By Tyler Harley

Fact-spewing time.  Ask the average American what’s in the recently passed Healthcare Bill and they probably won’t be able to tell much.  That’s no fault of theirs. This is a confusing piece of legislature that been surrounded by more controversy than any other bill in my lifetime, so it’s hard to know what’s exactly true.  Since there is so much information, we’ve taken the time to boil down a few of the important issues.  The “Healthcare and Education Affordability Reconciliation Act” is 2,310 pages long.  So we won’t be going into all of it.

Here are some notes to help you understand what exactly this bill will do and why it is so important:

• It will cover approximately 32 million people
• The estimated cost of his plan is roughly $940 billion, and it is said to reduce the deficit by $143 billion
• You can keep your current plan if you do not wish to change it
• A lot of this bill will be enacted in phases over a period of time.
• Already enacted is the clause that prohibits insurance companies from both denying service and raising premiums for children due to pre-existing conditions
• Within the next 6 months, insurance agencies will be prohibited from cancelling coverage to customers simply because they get sick
• Small businesses will receive subsidies to provide better insurance for workers, and they will be not allowed to deny coverage (except for companies with less than 50 employees) or they will pay a fine of $2000 per employee
• By 2013, there will be increased Medicare taxes (by about 0.9%) to individuals making more than $200,000 annually and families making more than $250,000 annually
• There will also be a 3.8% tax on things like interest and dividends (a.k.a. unearned income)
• There will be no more limit to how much coverage a single person can receive
• Us young folks can keep using our parents’ health insurance until age 26
• In 2014, health insurance will be mandatory (just like car insurance) – all citizens must have health insurance or pay either a fine of $95 a year or 1% of income
• Also in 2014, tax credits will be available to lower- and middle-class families, the subsidies for businesses will increase, and the “pre-existing condition” clause will apply to everyone
• In the coming years, the health insurance industry will be taxed, starting at $8 billion
• Medicare will start paying doctors based on quality of care instead of quantity of care. and they will receive a 10% bonus as well
• Temporary insurance will be offered to early retirees (minimum age 55)
• A backdoor deal between Harry Reid (Senate Majority Leader) and Senator Ben Nelson (D-Ne) which guaranteed all new Medicaid users in Nebraska lifelong coverage paid for by the federal government was not in the final draft
• Finally, for those anyone confused by this issue: THERE IS NO PUBLIC OPTION

And that’s not even a quarter of what’s in this bill.* But hopefully it is enough to clear up some of the mysteries about it and provide you with the basics.

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* I actually have no idea how much of the bill this information represents. 25% seemed like a pretty small number to me.