On March 23, 2010, President Barack Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act, but most people simply refer to it as the Health Care Reform Bill. Health care has always been a sticky subject among Americans and now with the new bill, it’s becoming even more of a debate. The bill will affect these seven important things:
1. Every United States citizen will be required by law to purchase health insurance or be at risk of having a fine. You may be eligible to receive help from the government if your current employer does not provide health insurance for you or you do not make enough money to pay for it yourself.
2. Right now, budget cuts are affecting millions of businesses in the U.S. and many important jobs such as school teachers are being terminated to save money. With an additional 33 million people receiving insurance under the new bill, a higher demand for medical professions will occur across the nation. If you are looking for a new job or don’t even have one, the medical field might be a good choice to look at and you could get a degree in just a few short months.
3. Right now, most insurance agencies don’t allow kids to be on their parents’ plan when they reach the age of 19. Under the new bill however, they can stay on their family’s current policy until they reach the age of 26.
4. If you become sick or injured, your health insurance provider will not be able to drop you or cancel your current policy.
5. Pre-existing health conditions will no longer affect your ability to receive coverage and your children cannot be denied coverage because their conditions.
6. If you are sick and your cost of treatment goes up, insurance companies cannot put a limit on the amount of coverage you can receive.
7. There will no longer be a waiting time for receiving coverage if you had pre-existing conditions.
Most republicans, who have been against government run health care all along, unanimously voted against the bill and many other people are also not happy with it. With our old system, health care was supplied by independent companies and now the system is government sponsored and is supposed to give coverage to everyone who was currently uninsured. Americans’ main concern with the new bill is that it will increase taxes for everyone. Also, a 10% tax will be added to the cost of the use of indoor tanning services and insurance companies can no longer give coverage to people who seek abortions. Throughout the next decade, the new health care plan is said to cost a total of $940 billion.
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I personally think that the new health care bill could benefit everyone the way it sounds. It’s really good for the 32 million people who don’t currently have health care and also for the people who are having trouble with the expenses. The whole point of health care is to protect people and give them help with medical expenses and give them the treatment that they need when they get sick or hurt. With our previous plan, too many people weren’t able to receive that kind of help or were breaking their nearly empty piggy banks just to make sure that they got it. This new plan is going to help every sick, injured, poor, elderly, or young person and give them the opportunity to get themselves better without paying much out of pocket or having to worry about not having the necessary coverage to do so. All in all, I think that this plan is a nice change to have.
Sources Used: http://www.healthcarebill2010.info/
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