The affordable health care act

Don't you just love people who spout opinions and try and circulate them without first checking the facts? I admit I had a few when the legislation was finally past but not having read the entire bill kept quiet. The problem with our system is that it leaves a large number of people with no health care. That would be unconscionable in any other industrialized country. What people fail to realize is that there is no easy quick fix. A simple matter of a few thousand dollar voucher and cutting funding to the less fortunate will only make matters worse. I recall when I first started writing about this most nations were spending around $3600 per person per year while the U.S. was spending $6200. At that time there were 45 million without care. Those figure have changed. For no apparent reason costs went up in just the last few years as did the number of uninsured (the latter due to unemployment). Nothing dramatically changed in the last few years other than the fear from insurance companies that their profits would be cut.

What I note in the Affordable Health Care Act is an attempt to fix many problems with the system.

Sec. 101. National high-risk pool program.
Sec. 102. Ensuring value and lower premiums.
Sec. 103. Ending health insurance rescission abuse.
Sec. 104. Sunshine on price gouging by health insurance issuers.
Sec. 105. Requiring the option of extension of dependent coverage for unin-
sured young adults.
Sec. 106. Limitations on preexisting condition exclusions in group health plans
in advance of applicability of new prohibition of preexisting
condition exclusions.
Sec. 107. Prohibiting acts of domestic violence from being treated as pre-
existing conditions.
Sec. 108. Ending health insurance denials and delays of necessary treatment
for children with deformities.
Sec. 109. Elimination of lifetime limits.
Sec. 110. Prohibition against postretirement reductions of retiree health bene-
fits by group health plans.
Sec. 111. Reinsurance program for retirees.
Sec. 112. Wellness program grants.
Sec. 113. Extension of COBRA continuation coverage.
Sec. 114. State Health Access Program grants.
Sec. 115. Administrative simplification.

I've read a fair amount of this bill. To try and return to our former system would be foolish. First off those that had been denied are now covered. Many, like young adults, who are out of college but haven't found a job with benefits are getting coverage on their parents plans. People who may have retired early and are too young for Medicare but too well off for Medicaid can get affordable coverage. Even people at the poverty level can get subsidized coverage for just $20 per month. And the requirements for basic coverage are good as well. A plan must include medical, dental vision and hearing as well as any other services offered by the medical establishment. There are no lifetime maximum limits as were once imposed. And the plans already in place will have to cover the additional requirements.

If all of this sounds like some evil government take over as some would have you believe then I say bring it on because it's far better than any plan I've ever had. For about the past ten years I've had to fight for the coverage I was due constantly calling writing and many trips in person just to prove what I was entitled to according to their own documents.

More on this later - having blogger posting issues.