HEALTH CARE REFORM

The health care reform debated is heated and vitrolic. Opponents have circulated a number of rumors that purport to be facts about what the health care reform will mean to the average citizen.

Here's What the White House Says You Will Get Out of Health Insurance Reform:


  1. Reform will bring down costs generally and make insurance more affordable and accessible, ensuring more choices for quality coverage
  2. Reform will allow you to keep the coverage you have if you want to
  3. Reform will establish an insurance exchange that will provide easy one-stop shopping to compare rates and services and promote competition
  4. Reform will require plans to cover basic pediatric services, as well as dental, vision, and hearing needs for children
  5. Reform will greatly improve access to pediatric care and address shortages by investing in an expanded health care workforce
  6. Reform will promote better accountability for the quality of care children receive
  7. Reform will support and stabilize health coverage for early retirees
  8. Reform will streamline and simplify paperwork and cut the bureaucracy for you and your doctor
  9. Reform will strengthen the financial health of Medicare by reducing waste and ending overpayments to insurance companies
  10. Reform will be accompanied by an agreement to end the "donut hole" in Medicare Part D, dramatically reducing both the costs and anxieties associated with purchasing prescription drugs
  11. Reform will end discrimination based on gender - a healthy 22 year old female can be charged premiums 150% higher than a healthy 22 year old male under the status quo
  12. Reform puts a cap on what insurance companies can force you to pay in out of pocket expenses, co-pays and deductibles
  13. Reform will expand coverage for children through their parents’ plan until they’re twenty-six if their parents so choose
  14. Reform will eliminate discrimination based on pre-existing conditions or medical history
  15. Reform will prevent insurance companies from placing annual or lifetime caps on the coverage you receive
  16. Reform will require insurance companies to renew any policy as long as the policyholder pays their premium in full

Take this health care reform quiz at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/quiz/?e=12&ref=text