Health Insurance Reform Passes!

On Sunday, March 21, 2010, the bleeding disorder community saw the culmination of many years of hard work when Congress passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, commonly known as the health care reform bill.  With its companion bill, the Health Care and Education Affordability Reconciliation Act, the legislation begins a new era for all Americans, but especially for those with expensive, chronic conditions like hemophilia.  These people will now have access to quality, affordable health care and have the same choices in health insurance that others have.  Small businesses will no longer have to fear hiring a person with hemophilia - there will be no more detrimental effects on the company's insurance plan.  People with hemophilia can now be self-employed and have health insurance because they will be able to buy quality individual policies at an affordable price.
Some of these changes take place six months from now.  Others will be phased in over the next four years.  Hemophilia of Georgia will not only keep you informed through regular newsletter articles; our Outreach Nurses and Social Workers will work with each family to make sure they get the maximum benefit from the new laws.  These are some of the changes that take place this year:

• Young people can remain on their parents' health insurance policies through age 26.  They are no longer required to be full-time students to get this benefit.
  
• The elimination of lifetime caps in all new and existing insurance plans.  (A lifetime cap is the maximum amount in health costs that a policy will pay.  Often set at $1 million dollars, many people with hemophilia reach this limit early in life.)  New health insurance plans can't impose annual limits on coverage.  Existing plans can have approved annual limits until 2014, when all annual limits would be banned.
  
• Eliminate rescission in health insurance plans - the practice of cancelling someone's insurance when they become ill.
  
• Children with pre-existing conditions (like a bleeding disorder) cannot be denied health insurance coverage.  Adults get this benefit beginning in 2014.
  
• Adults with a pre-existing condition will gain access to subsidized health insurance coverage through a new high-risk insurance program.  This temporary program will provide coverage until 2014 when these people will be able to purchase insurance through new insurance exchanges or be covered by Medicaid.
  
• People on Medicare who reach the "doughnut hole" in drug coverage will receive a $250 rebate.  The "doughnut hole" is eventually eliminated under the new law.

There are efforts in the Georgia General Assembly to try to block enactment of health insurance reform in our state.  It is very important that people with bleeding disorders be very vocal with friends, neighbors, and elected officials about how important health care reform is to all of us.  Questions about health insurance reform and HoG's advocacy efforts can be sent to Jeff Cornett, HoG's Director of Training, Research, & Advocacy, at gjcornett@hog.org, or by phone at 770-518-8272.