1. No more caps on coverage. The insurance companies can no longer cap your coverage, either annually or over your lifetime – a big deal should you ever develop an illness that requires big bucks to address. Prior to this reform, insurance companies routinely employed “lifetime caps” of 1 to 3 million dollars. Which means if you spent more than that over your lifetime, you’d lose your coverage and be forced to pay every bill yourself, a virtual guarantee that you’d be bankrupt shortly thereafter.
2. No more getting turned down for coverage based on pre-existing medical conditions. Starting in 2014, if you have an illness like cancer or diabetes, insurance companies can no longer refuse to insure you – or turn you away by charging so much in premiums that there’s no way you can afford to pay. Children are an exception: Children already can’t be turned down because of pre-existing conditions.
3. No more booting kids off parents’ policies at 21. Dependent children up to 26 years old can remain covered under their parents’ policy. Keeping kids on a parental policy is normally cheaper than insuring kids individually.
4. Payments for preventive health care. Until health care reform, preventive care coverage – like annual physicals, for example – could be subject to deductibles and co-pays. Now it’s free: no co-pay, no out of pocket (although there’s still some doubt this is actually happening).
5. State insurance marketplaces: Starting in 2014, states will operate insurance marketplaces that are designed to lower prices by increasing competition. Those who pay for their own insurance, like the many self-employed Americans, should find lower-priced plans thanks to the increased competition afforded by these marketplaces.
6. Coverage for low-income Americans: The law expanded Medicaid to all non-Medicare eligible individuals under age 65 (children, pregnant women, parents, and adults without dependent children) with incomes up to 133% of the federal poverty level.
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