There’s also one other large set of people who won’t
need to buy health insurance.
“Everybody who is eligible for Medicaid or Medicare does not have to purchase additional coverage,” notes Deborah Chollet, a senior fellow at Mathematica Policy Research in Washington, D.C., who is helping states set up the new health exchanges where consumers will shop for insurance.
Private researchers have found that only a very small
percentage of Americans will be subject to the individual mandate penalty, maintains Kathleen Stoll, director of health policy for the health care consumer group Families USA.
2) Misplaced worker apathy
Fiction:If you’re insured through your employer, health care reform won’t
affect you.
Fact: On the contrary, many new consumer protections under the Affordable Care Act are already benefiting people with job-based health insurance.
For example, the health care reform law bars insurers from placing lifetime limits on what they will pay for a worker’s medical care, plus there are new restrictions on annual benefit limits, says Brian Chiglinsky, spokesman for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. “Insurers are no longer able to arbitrarily cancel your insurance policy when you get sick, except in cases of fraud,” he adds.
Other new features for job-based policies include: no more copayments or deductibles for preventive health services, including cancer screenings; the right to see obstetricians and gynecologists without a referral; better access to out-of-network services in an emergency; protections against unfair administrative fees; and the right to keep dependents younger than 26 on your policy.
3) New government insurance?
Fiction: The Affordable Care Act creates a new government-run insurance
plan.
Fact: The health care reform law includes no such
provision.
Rather than centralize health insurance, health care reform
accomplishes many of the goals of so-called universal coverage through its interwoven expansion of the existing Medicaid program, increased federal regulation of the health insurance industry and tax credits to make private insurance more affordable.