Health care reform forum enlightens area ... - Health and Fitness

Thomas McAuliffe spent well more than 90 minutes Thursday morning giving what he termed a non-partisan overview of the federal health care reform act.
McAuliffe, a policy analyst for the Missouri Foundation of Health, has been crossing the state the past several months outlining the ins and outs of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which was signed into law by President Obama in March 2010. He told about 40 interested individuals at a Lake Regional Hospital health care forum that his objective was to make the complex health care law easier to understand.
There are approximately 2,500 pages in the law.
?No one, or very few people, know what?s in the law,? he said in his opening remarks. ?It?s hard to read and understand because health care is so complicated.?
He has read it through twice.
An informal show of hands among those attending indicated that most agreed there needs to be some type of health care reform, but a scant few said they are getting what they need from the current health care system.
According to McAuliffe, Americans need health care reform because:
?America has the most expensive care in the world, with some of the poorest outcomes
?Employers cannot afford to offer insurance
?Being without insurance make us ill and poor
?The U.S. economy cannot keep up spending so much on health care/insurance
His presentation included a liturgy of? ?good things? and ?terrible things? about the law, which currently is under scrutiny by the U.S. Supreme Court. A final ruling is expected later this month, and states, insurance companies, health care professionals, individuals and others are awaiting the decision before moving forward.
McAuliffe, who is available to talk to any size group about health care reform, has held about 150 such gatherings in the state including one as small as ?three people in someone?s basement.? Interest in the subject has waned in recent weeks as the country awaits the Supreme Court decision.
He anticipates one of four outcomes from the High Court:
?Overturn the law
?Strike down the individual mandate portion, but uphold the law
?Strike down the individual mandate portion, and pick and choose among segments of the law
?Uphold the law
Under the individual mandate section of the law, individuals would be required to maintain minimum health care coverage each month or pay a penalty. The tax penalty for those without coverage would be $95 in 2014, $325 in 2015, $695 in 2016 and then a flat dollar amount indexed to inflation, capped at 300 percent.
The lists of changes to private health insurance, some of which went into effect in 2010, are long and complicated, McAuliffe noted.
These include:
?Dependents would now be covered up to the age of 26. A dependent is a family member with whom the insurance payer has a relationship.
?There will no longer be any pre-existing condition exclusions
?Beginning in 2014, most people will be expected to carry insurance or pay a fine. A variety of health insurance plans will be available through a newly established exchange or health insurance marketplace. All plans will cover preventative care without co-pays and will not have annual spending limits. Exceptions include individuals with financial hardships or certain religious beliefs
There are an estimated 80 million Americans uninsured and 100 million under insured. The health care reform act hopes to reduce those numbers, according to McAuliffe.
It costs taxpayers between $350 and $2,000 a year to subsidize the uninsured individuals.
?Our system does not work,? he said. ?We pay the highest health care costs in the world and in some cases our morbidity (rate of incidence of disease) is worse than most. We don?t have the best health care in the world except in some components of health care. But if you have a chronic condition, you don?t want to be in this country. We?re bad at preventing and treating morbidity.?
McAuliffe did dispel some misnomers if the law is upheld, including:
?There will be no more co-pay for preventive care as an incentive for people to go to the doctor
?There are no death panels in the law that would determine the fate of individuals based on their health and age.
?Medicare is not running out of money. It is a relatively efficient program
According to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, the $940 billion cost of health care reform is estimated to pay for itself. The CBO believes it will also reduce the national debt by $124 billion by 2020. However, rules created for how to implement the law could raise or lower the cost. The investment in preventive care and management of chronic conditions is projected to create even more savings, according to the CBO.

Five Things to Know
?Individuals and small businesses will get more affordable and better insurance in the Exchange
?Most Americans will get some assistance to buy insurance
?Prevention will save money and will focus medicine on outcomes, not treatments
?Much of what this law does isn?t being discussed
?If overturned, the country is back where it started as far as health care reform
For more information, check out www.covermissouri.org, or call 1-800-655-5560.

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Article source: http://www.lakenewsonline.com/newsnow/x1916929974/Health-care-reform-forum-enlightens-area-residents

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