After much debate and controversy, Health Care Reform was pushed through both the House and Senate and signed into law by President Obama last week. Throughout the year-long process, many of its features have been eliminated or changed, but there is no mistake that the health insurance industry will be forever altered by this landmark legislation.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and its companion Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act encompass a range of comprehensive reforms designed to provide health insurance access to over 30 million Americans not currently covered and change the way insurers do business.

Included among the major tenants of the legislation are such things as:

• Tax credits for small employers who provide coverage
• Elimination of pre-existing exclusions
• Elimination of lifetime and annual maximums
• Individual mandates for coverage
• Requiring employers to assume responsibility for the coverage of their employees
• Creating Health Insurance Exchanges
• Closing the Medicare Part-D donut hole
• Increasing the role of Medicaid
• Providing subsidies for individuals within a certain income range

The majority of these provisions will be rolled out from 2010 through 2014 with specific effective dates occurring throughout.

In the coming weeks, the impact of these provisions will become clearer as they are analyzed and discussed. UHAS intends to continue to explore these fascinating changes in more detail.

For an excellent summary of all the major provisions of this legislation including the timeline of their effective dates, we suggest you visit the Health Care reform page of the Democratic Policy Committee (“DPC”) at the following link:

http://dpc.senate.gov/healthreformbill/healthbill65.pdf

Although the DPC is a political group, this summary is essentially an accurate description of the new legislation and is the best source of the implementation timeline available on the internet.

Please note that UHAS does not necessarily share the political views of the DPC and does not intend for this link to serve as a representation of its support for this organization.