The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA)
(It's not "ObamaCare")
Mini-Medical School March 17, 2012
Stephanie Taylor MD PhD
26365 Carmel Rancho Blvd., Suite F, Carmel, CA 93923
831-622-1995
Why do we need this legislation?
- Rising costs of healthcare
- Increasing number of uninsured
In 1950, healthcare was 5% of production, now it is 17%. Money spent on healthcare is money not spent on other items, like wages.
Even with our private system, government pays for about half of all healthcare.
The uninsured, who are they? In 2010, 4.5 million people lost employer sponsored coverage. Some were too sick to work. Almost fifty percent of bankruptcies are due to medical expenses and of that group half those people had health insurance. When a patient cannot pay for healthcare, the cost is shifted to the hospital, to insured patients and then to the insurance company, who shift it back to the insured patients. We all pay.
The ACA-where to find out the details. There are several excellent websites that detail the provisions of the ACA.
The Henry Kaiser Family Foundation: www.healthreform.kff.org
The Commonwealth Fund: www.commonwealthfund.org/health-reform.aspx
Health and Human Services: www.healthcare.gov
AARP: www.aarp.org/healthreformguide
AARP: www.aarp.org/guiadelaleydesalud (in Spanish)
Catholic Health Association of the United States:
"A passionate voice for compassionate care"
www.youtube.com/HealthReformWorks and www.healthcareandyou.org
Pre-existing conditions Insurance Plan (California): www.pcip.ca.gov
Health Care Reform, the comic book: Health Care Reform by Jonathan Gruber
Health Insurance Town Hall with Assembly member Bill Monning, Thursday, April 12, 2012, 6:30-8:30 PM at Carpenter's Hall, 910 Second Ave, Marina, CA
Individual issues for discussion:
The Individual Mandate to be taken up by the Supreme Court later this month. The ACA works without the individual mandate, it just costs more. Pooling risk means just that-everyone contributes and everyone benefits.
Popular regulations already in force: No denial of coverage of children for pre-existing conditions, no rescinding of coverage, no lifetime dollar limits on coverage, 85% of insurance premium dollars need to be spent on health care/quality improvement.
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