Historic Legislation

On March 23rd, 2010 President Obama signed into law the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (The Act).  This legislation is a historic and far-reaching accomplishment, particularly for America’s children and families.  The Act is designed (with its companion set of amendments in H.R. 4782) to provide health coverage to 32 million uninsured people, and adopt broad-reaching reforms in insurance industry practices, and make major new investments in public health.

Most of the health reforms are scheduled to be implemented and go into effect on January 1st 2014.  While many improvements to our healthcare system will be quite gradual, some crucial changes will begin taking effect in 2010.

Provisions for children and families commencing in 2010:

March 23rd, 2010 (date of enactment)

• States are required to ‘hold steady’ when it comes to providing Medicaid and Child Health Insurance Program or CHIP coverage (known as MIChild in Michigan) – they must at least maintain the coverage and enrollment procedures they have in place now and can no longer can add new red tape barriers that make it harder for families to sign up for coverage;
• Five million more uninsured children nationally (approximately 116,000 children in Michigan) could start receiving affordable health coverage right now through MIChild or Medicaid plans (these children are already eligible but are not currently enrolled in either of these programs).

 By June 24, 2010

• A temporary high-risk pool established for qualified uninsured people with pre-existing conditions.

After September 23, 2010 (as a new health plan year begins)

• Children with insurance will no longer be denied coverage for pre-existing conditions;
• Insurance companies will no longer be able to impose lifetime limits or restrictive annual limits, nor can they drop coverage when someone becomes ill;
• New plans must provide free preventive services to enrollees;
• Young adults will be allowed to stay on their parent’s health policies until they are 26 years old.

On July 1 2010, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is planning on launching a new health reform web portal that will provide state level information about affordable health coverage options for all.  This health reform portal has been designed to assist families, individuals and small businesses to learn about all the coverage options available in each state.  The portal will include information on the following:

1. Medicaid and CHIP;
2. Health coverage options offered on the individual market; and
3. Existing state high risk pools as well as the new high risk pools established under the Act.

This information will be provided in a standardized format that is simple, with the minimum utilization of technical language, jargon and complex sentences in order to promote the ability of consumers to understand the information.

What the new federal health law means for you: http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Stories/2010/June/02/What-The-Health-Law-Means-To-You.aspx

Access to care for children in Medicaid:

http://ccf.georgetown.edu/index/cms-filesystem-action?file=policy/health reform/access to care.pdf