Healthcare (Obamacare)
Signed on March 23 2010, and upheld by the Supreme Court on June 28 2012, official title is Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010. Goal is to give more Americans access to affordable, quality health insurance and to reduce the growth in US health care spending. In 2015: 1 in 6 American got a Health Insurance Marketplace plan for &100 or less and 87% of people who selected a marketplace plan got financial assistance. In 2016: 7 out of 10 Marketplace customers could get a plan for less than $75 a month and 8 in 10 could get one for $100 or less. Even in 2017, this should uphold primarily because cost assistance is based on income.
The following is a map of those uninsured before and after Obamacare was enacted. (From NY Times)
Some of its benefits, rights, and protections:
- Letting young adults stay on their parents’ plan until 26
- Stopping insurance companies from denying you coverage or charging you more based on health stats
- Stopping insurance companies from dropping you when you are sick or if you make a honest mistake on your application
- Preventing gender discrimination
- Stopping insurance companies from imposing unjustified rate hikes
- Doing away with life-time and annual dollar limits
- Giving you the right to a rapid appeal of insurance company decisions
- Expanding coverage to tens of millions by subsidizing health insurance costs through the Health Insurance Marketplace
- Expanding Medicaid to millions in states that chose to expand the program
- Providing tax breaks to small businesses for offering health insurance to their employees
- Requiring large businesses to insure employees
- Requiring all insurers to cover people with pre-existing conditions
- Making CHIP easier for kids to get
- Improving Medicare for seniors
- Ensuring all plans cover minimum benefits like limits on cost sharing and ten essential benefits including free preventive care, OB-GYN services with no referrals, free birth control, and coverage for emergency room visits out-of-network