Help an outsider understand what has changed since ObamaCare.

[Locut0s]

I sometimes frequent a mental health chat room, anxiety board, where most of the people are from the US. Today I logged in for the first time in some months to see how people were doing and got into a discussion about health insurance. One person was extremely distraught, to the point of having a mini break down, because their already exorbitant health insurance costs were going up from $600/mth to $900/mth! This is private insurance. Apparently this person has a series of serious health problems and feels that they need this insurance desperately. They also talked about denials due to preexisting conditions etc...

I know next to nothing about how the US health care system operates, expect for some of the fundamental flaws in its design. But I do know that ObamaCare was supposed to address at least a few things. I know health care costs wouldn't go down, but aren't they supposed to not be allowed to deny due to preexisting conditions? Or has that part not kicked in yet?

Is the cost for health care insurance continuing to rise? Is there anything in the OCare bill to address health care costs, aside from insuring everyone? I know it's supposed to help those who can't afford to pay for it themselves, but what about those who CAN but are forced to spend most of their earnings on it? In that case I'd almost rather be jobless.

[Locut0s]

1. Course the discussion then degraded into immigrants taking our resources etc...

*sigh*

[Mika]

2. For profit capitalism, including health care, is a system of rationing.

Those with money get it. Those who haven't money don't.

It's the US Freedom™ principle, hallmark of America's "rugged individualism" and liberty.

[Locut0s]

5. I suppose it almost naturally breeds racism...

When it's forcefully dog eat dog even for your own health the thought arises that "you" are taking my "spot" in line. And maybe in the US system it's not an incorrect thought to some degree. Interesting the idea that we should all have the same "spot" in line doesn't come up too often.

[ProSense]

3. Some rules

have already kicked in, but the law isn't going to be fully implemented until 2014. Here's a timeline: http://www.healthcare.gov/law/timeline/

Sec. Kathleen Sebelius

Holding Insurance Companies Accountable for High Premium Increases

The Affordable Care Act prohibits some of the worst insurance industry practices that have kept affordable health coverage out of reach for millions of Americans. It provides families and individuals with new protections against discriminatory rates due to pre-existing conditions, holds insurance companies accountable for how they spend your premium dollars, and prevents insurance companies from raising your insurance premium rates without accountability or transparency.

For more than a decade before the Affordable Care Act health insurance premiums had risen rapidly, straining the pocketbooks of American families and businesses. Oftentimes, insurance companies were able to raise rates without explanation to consumers or public justification of their actions.



The Affordable Care Act brought an unprecedented level of scrutiny and transparency to health insurance rate increases by requiring insurance companies in every state to publicly justify their actions if they want to raise rates by 10% or more. Insurance companies are required to provide easy to understand information to their customers about their reasons for significant rate increases, and any unreasonable rate increases are posted online.

And it's working.

A new report released today shows that the health care law is helping to moderate premium hikes. Since this rule was implemented, the number of requests for insurance premium increases of 10% or more has dropped dramatically, from 75% to 14%. The average premium increase for all rates in 2012 was 30% below what it was in 2010. And available data suggest that this slowdown in rate increases has continued into 2013.

- more -

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sec-kathleen-sebelius/holding-insurance-compani_b_2742501.html

Rules finalized for the good stuff in Obamacare

by Joan McCarter

The bulk of the most popular stuff of the Affordable Care act hasn't gone into effect yet, but the regulations for it have been finalized, so insurance companies will have plenty of time to get used to the fact that there are going to be real limits on how much they can screw you starting next year.

Those new regulations hit the five key consumer protections:

• Guaranteed Availability
  Nearly all health insurance companies offering coverage to individuals and employers will be required to sell health insurance policies to all consumers. No one can be denied health insurance because they have or had an illness.
  
  
• Fair Health Insurance Premiums
  Health insurance companies offering coverage to individuals and small employers will only be allowed to vary premiums based on age, tobacco use, family size, and geography. Basing premiums on other factors will be illegal. The factors that are no longer permitted in 2014 include health status, past insurance claims, gender, occupation, how long an individual has held a policy, or size of the small employer.
  
  
• Guaranteed Renewability
  Health insurance companies will no longer refuse to renew coverage because an individual or an employee has become sick. You may renew your coverage at your option.
  
  
• Single Risk Pool
  Health insurance companies will no longer be able to charge higher premiums to higher cost enrollees by moving them into separate risk pools. Insurers are required to maintain a single state-wide risk pool for the individual market and single state-wide risk pool for the small group market.
  
  
• Catastrophic Plans
  Young adults and people for whom coverage would otherwise be unaffordable will have access to a catastrophic plan in the individual market. Catastrophic plans generally will have lower premiums, protect against high out-of-pocket costs, and cover recommended preventive services without cost sharing.

This is the stuff that's going to make Obamacare no longer a dirty word. It's also the stuff that's going to lessen opposition to a larger federal government role in all of our health care, a good starting point to the much larger, systemic reforms that are still going to have to happen to fix health care in America.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/02/22/1189127/-Rules-finalized-for-the-good-stuff-in-nbsp-Obamacare

New Federal Rule Requires Insurers to Offer Mental Health Coverage

By ROBERT PEAR

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration issued a final rule on Wednesday defining “essential health benefits” that must be offered by most health insurance plans next year, and it said that 32 million people would gain access to coverage of mental health care as a result.

The federal rule requires insurers to cover treatment of mental illnesses, behavioral disorders, drug addiction and alcohol abuse, and other conditions.

Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, said that in addition to the millions who would gain access to mental health care, 30 million people who already have some mental health coverage will see improvements in benefits.

White House officials described the rule as a major expansion of coverage. In the past, they said, nearly 20 percent of people buying insurance on their own did not have coverage for mental health services, and nearly one-third had no coverage for treatment of substance abuse.

- more -

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/21/health/new-federal-rule-requires-insurers-to-offer-mental-health-coverage.html

How Obamacare Will Help Extend Health Care To Part-Time Workers
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022309389

Here’s one way Obamacare changed today
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251288922

[Locut0s]

6. Thanks that's very helpful! I guess insurance providers are trying to squeeze the last...

dollars they possibly can out of people while they can before these really go into effect?

It's nice to see there's more meat in the bill than I thought, though I'm sure it's only a first step.

[TheKentuckian]

8. Not exactly, the harvesting will continue and the insurance cartel will be

effectively made into a Too Big To Fail and given a key to the treasury to make up what they cannot extract from the people.

This plan has been around for a long time, it is a design to essentially save the cartel from it's self by slowing the black hole like avarice and backing off the most brutal abuses just enough to set up a fascist marriage where existence the state makes being a customer compulsory.

Pretty much exactly the same as it was structurally with a little oversight like rates can't rise 10% or more or they have to explain the increase. What happens if the explanation is unacceptable (what is acceptable is not known)?

Wags of the fingers and possibly excluded from the exchanges (you know the least profitable folks they many times refused)

Guaranteed issue is only so much of a win with mandatory purchase in the mix, it becomes a "no duh" scenario or it is straight to the torches and pitchforks but since we have stretched both the tax code and our commerce clause to the breaking point, I guess they could actually do make us pay them in exchange for nothing and just call it a tax of some kind or another depending on who was selling it and how absurdly crooked our Supreme Court is at a given time which is something else we don't have a measure on but we haven't touched bottom yet.

[haikugal]

4. K&R!!!!

Thanks for your interest. I hope someone will come along and address your questions.

[Locut0s]

7. Thanks ProSense's reply was quite helpful. I welcome others still though :P