Ethiopian Review

Listening to the rhetoric on the House floor Sunday night (anyone count the number of times we heard the word “historic”?), you could be forgiven for getting the impression that the moment the gavel came down, the country would be forever transformed into a social justice utopia or a Soviet republic, depending on which side you were listening to.

The reality, of course, is that if it felt like it took a long time to pass health care reform, it’s going to seem like forever before its full effect is felt, with big ticket provisions like insurance subsidies, the individual mandate and bans on denying coverage for preexisting conditions not taking effect until 2014. Perhaps aware that Americans are an impatient people, Democrats have been touting a list of the top ten “immediate” benefits of health care (in quotes because some of the immediate benefits actually take effect in six months), and there have been some other helpful roundups of what happens when.

Here’s a look at some provisions of the recently passed health bill, signed by President Obama this morning, that will kick in this year:

• New health insurance plans won’t be able to deny coverage to children because of preexisting conditions. That rule will eventually apply to existing and new policies, and children as well as adults, but not for a few years.
• Small businesses with fewer than 50 employees will start getting tax credits to help them provide insurance, covering 35 percent of premiums. By 2014, that number will rise to 50 percent.
• Young adults will be able to stay on their parents’ insurance until they’re 26. This was a key fix in the reconciliation bill, since the Senate’s language would have only applied to new policies, allowing existing policies in most states to continue booting kids off when they turn 19 or graduate college.
• Insurers will be barred from placing lifetime caps on the amount of benefits a person can receive. Eventually, they’ll be barred from imposing yearly caps too.
• Seniors will get a $250 rebate to help pay for drugs not currently covered because of the Medicare prescription drug plan’s “donut hole.”
• Insurance companies won’t be able to drop coverage when someone gets sick.
• New insurance plans will have to cover annual checkups and other preventive care with no co-pay.
• A 10 percent tax on tanning salons will take effect this summer.

Photo credit: laffy4k

- Erin Durkin