Posted on 04/03/2013 5:46:26 AM PDT by tobyhill
If you buy your own health insurance now, you'll be in for a big change when you sign up for coverage in 2014.
Just over half of the individual plans currently on the market do not meet the standards to be sold next year, when many key provisions of President Obama's Affordable Care Act kick in, according to a University of Chicago study. That's because the law sets new minimums for the basic coverage every individual health care plan must provide.
"They will offer a lot more financial protection," Jon Gabel, the report's lead author, said of the individual plans that will be available next year. His team drew its conclusions from 2010 data supplied by health insurers.
Some 15 million Americans, or about 6% of non-elderly adults, currently buy coverage on the individual market.
Starting this fall, they'll be able to shop for and enroll in health insurance through state-based exchanges, with coverage taking effect in January. By 2016, some 24 million people will get insurance through the exchanges, while another 12 million will continue to get individual coverage outside of them, the Congressional Budget Office estimates.
Both groups will be affected by the new Obamacare rules. Starting next year, nearly all individual plans -- both in and out of the exchanges -- will be required to cover an array of "essential" services, including medication, maternity and mental health care. Many plans don't currently offer those benefits.
(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...
Why do men have to pay for maternity care?
Politicians have been micromanaging health insurance for years. Some group lobbies state legislators for their pet treatment or disease, and *presto* all insurance companies must cover them.
So, you pay for everyone else’s chiropractic, mental health, maternity, mammograms, autism treatments (many of which are quack therapies targeted at the desperate), and a whole host of other treatments and tests that you may not want or need. Nobody is allowed to just buy basic health coverage for themselves and their families.
Does anyone know if the law REQUIRES providers to accept patients? Otherwise I see a lot of “cash only” doctors.
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