Rachel Maddow's list of what the new health care bill will do

[zulchzulu]

On September 23rd...

• All kids get covered (no pre-existing conditions)
  
• Can't get dropped if you get sick (no more insurance companies dropping you)
  
• No more lifetime limits (on benefits)
  
• Children can stay on until 26 (coverage up to that age)
  

On January 1, 2011...

• Premium payment reformed (80-85% for medical care) with rebate if you don't use coverage
  
• Free Medicare preventative care (no co-pays)
  

By 2014...

• Total ban on all pre-existing condition denials
  
• Health exchanges open
  
• End to annual limits on benefits
  

Republicans want to repeal this...

[iamjoy]

1. It's Communism!

oh, the horror!

[denimgirly]

2. It may not be perfect but those benefits are FANTASTIC!! Republicans will NEVER be able to repeal

can you imagine them trying to run an election against taking this back?
The only thing they can use against this is the "mandate" issue and the cliched tax increase blah blah

[zulchzulu]

4. No monumental legislation is ever perfect, but yes, the initial start is historic

As for Republicans calling to repeal the legislation, not only would it be political suicide but they would also have to get Obama to sign the repeal bill for legislation he fought for.

Yeah, that's going to happen...

[Cha]

3. Thank you, zulch..booked

and Rec.

[Jennicut]

5. Rethugs may try to repeal this but will people really want them to after they realize

some of the good things in this bill?

[bigdarryl]

6. when does the Senior prescription reduction kick in

[zulchzulu]

7. If you mean the 50% discount, it's 2011

"Beginning in 2011, seniors in the gap will receive a 50 percent discount on brand name drugs. The bill also includes $500 billion in Medicare cuts over the next decade. "

More: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20000846-503544.html

[vaberella]

8. ZulchZulu I have an important question...

It's in relation to the premium payment reformed. I'm asking this because I love the idea if I get the idea correct----and I don't understand why Dems don't run on this ALONE.

Let me explain what I think it is and correct me if I'm wrong. Say my insurance costs $600 a month an individual plan (I'm assuming this is the premium). And so for a year I pay them $7200. If I don't go to the doctor (and I don't know if this includes check ups or not) for the year---that means the insurance company is forced to return to me 80%-85% of my money I paid them out in year.

So out of the $7200 I paid out and since I didn't use the insurance I would get back $5760-$6120?!

So in essence there's no money lost and I'm basically paying them a holders fee of 15%?!

Let me know if this is correct.

[kick-ass-bob]

9. No - in aggregate, I believe.

The company must use 80-85% of it's premium collection for outlays into direct medical care, thus capping how much money they can make off of the premiums.

If they don't hit that level, they issue refunds to all customers.

[vaberella]

10. Okay so let me see if I understand this then.

Is this individual or overall for the people under their plan? So no matter what type of medical care I recieve---of the money I gave in...if I don't use all of my money then they have to give me back a refund of the unused portion. Can you give me a real world analogy if I still get it wrong. Thanks.

[kick-ass-bob]

11. I'm not an expert...

but lets say a company collects the premiums for their customers (1000 customers, to make it easy).

They collect $1,000,000. They must spend 800,000 of it on medical care. If they only spend 750,000 on medical care, they must refund 50,000 to their 1000 customers, or $50 to each, assuming all the premiums are equal.

This keeps the companies from overcharging on premiums to maximize their profits.

[vaberella]

12. Understood...

So it doesn't matter if one customer spends more than another...it's on the whole.