ObamaCare and Other Health Topics

Thursday, Sept. 19, 2013, 9am to 10:30 at the Meeting Room (behind the fireplace)

ObamaCare Topics

The Patient’s Bill of Rights:

• Provides Coverage to Americans with Pre-existing Conditions: You may be eligible for health coverage under the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan.
• Protects Your Choice of Doctors: Choose the primary care doctor you want from your plan’s network.
• Keeps Young Adults Covered: If you are under 26, you may be eligible to be covered under your parent’s health plan.
• Ends Lifetime Limits on Coverage: Lifetime limits on most benefits are banned for all new health insurance plans.
• Ends Pre-Existing Condition Exclusions for Children: Health plans can no longer limit or deny benefits to children under 19 due to a pre-existing condition.
• Ends Arbitrary Withdrawals of Insurance Coverage: Insurers can no longer cancel your coverage just because you made an honest mistake.
• Reviews Premium Increases: Insurance companies must now publicly justify any unreasonable rate hikes.
• Helps You Get the Most from Your Premium Dollars: Your premium dollars must be spent primarily on health care – not administrative costs.
• Restricts Annual Dollar Limits on Coverage: Annual limits on your health benefits will be phased out by 2014.
• Removes Insurance Company Barriers to Emergency Services: You can seek emergency care at a hospital outside of your health plan’s network.

ObamaCare Issues of Interest

• Changes to Medicare
• 30 million still uninsured
• Tax increases on some
• Individual mandate
• Employer mandate, delayed to 2015
• Medicaid expansion blocked in some states
• ObamaCare in Maryland and Howard County
• Needed fixes
• Politics of ObamaCare in 2014
• Free preventative care, good or bad?
• End of life care reform avoided

Background Information

1) A quick explanation of ObamaCare. This video was from the Kaiser Family Foundation website which is devoted to explaining healthcare reform.

2) The long explanation, Bill Clinton explains ObamaCare

3) How ObamaCare affects Medicare

4) There was some concern about the Oct 1 date. It seems that this date pertains to the opening of the Healthcare Exchanges, which probably does not pertain to us. But here are the websites setup for enrollment, Maryland Website, Federal Website.

5) Health Reform information on the White House website.

6) How many are uninsured

7) ObamaCare politics (from Ken)

8) NPR answers ObamaCare questions from listeners (from Ken)

9) FPL for 2013 (Federal Poverty Level)

10) MAGI, income to determine ObamaCare tax credits (Modified Adjusted Gross Income)

11) ObamaCare subsidy calculator