• The “donut hole” in Medicare prescription drug coverage is finally being closed. Prior to passage of the ACA, many senior had to pay out-of-pocket for annual drug costs over $2,840, up to $6,448, at which point coverage would kick in again. Discounts on prescription drugs last year saved 5.1 million seniors over $3.2 billion.
• It is now illegal for insurance companies to deny coverage to children with pre-existing conditions.
• It is now illegal for insurance companies to put lifetime caps on insurance coverage. 105 million Americans had insurance plans with lifetime caps before the ACA was passed. Catastrophic illness, which before the ACA was often not covered by insurance due to lifetime caps, was the cause of 60% of all bankruptcies in the US before passage of the ACA. Elimination of the caps removes a major cause of such bankruptcies.
• Parents of children up to age 26 whose insurance includes dependent coverage can now put their children on their insurance plans. 2.5 million more young adults had health insurance as of June 2011 than were covered before the law passed.
• Insurance companies now have to cover preventive care for free, and Medicare is providing free preventive care as well. Last year such services were provided to almost 87 million Americans. Preventive care, which includes regular doctor visits, vaccines and screenings for chronic illnesses , helps keep relatively minor illnesses from turning into serious and more expensive ones.

What’s Coming Up?

• By 2022, 33 million more Americans will have health insurance. This will mean they can afford to get sick and will not have to rely on emergency rooms when they do get sick, a practice whose high costs get passed along to all of us. The more people are insured, the cheaper it will be for all of us in the long run.
• The setup of health insurance exchanges, or marketplaces, in 2014 will provide tax credits and cost sharing, making insurance less expensive. This will reduce the financial burden of health insurance for people of modest means.
• The ban on denial of coverage due to pre-existing conditions, which is restricted to children right now, will be extended to everyone in 2014. Insurers will also be forbidden to charge higher rates to women and people who are ill.
• Various cost containment mechanisms, such as improving the quality of health care delivery, will also go into effect soon.

Now all we have to do is convince the Supreme Court that enabling millions of Americans to afford health care, get preventive care and contain costs is a far more reliable guarantee of our individual liberties than some dessicated libertarian excuse for shielding the wealthy from responsibility for the condition of the society to which they owe their fortunes.

Meanwhile, in New York State…

Republicans in the New York state Senate continue to block efforts by Governor Cuomo to set up a health insurance exchange, falsely claiming it will cost too much, when in reality, the federal government will cover all the startup expenses–assuming New York acts on it by the July 1 deadline. Here’s a great editorial from today’s New York Daily News: http://tinyurl.com/835cntq