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Guns Guns Guns
Guest
Many of the same Americans who are expressing passionate pro and con opinions of the Obama administration's health care reforms are still not completely sure how the complex and sprawling system created by the Affordable Care Act will work.
A small business is eligible for tax credits to help pay for workers' health insurance, for a business that has 25 or fewer employees.
Going forward, a small business person would have the opportunity as of 2014 to buy coverage for his workers through new small business health insurance exchanges that will be set up in every state or that will be enabled to be in existence, because the federal government will step in and help to run those in certain states.
For companies that have 50 or fewer employees, if they don't offer coverage to workers, nothing happens to them.
For companies that are larger than that, however, if they do not offer coverage to their workers or if one of their workers ends up buying coverage through an exchange and claiming some of the federal subsidies, they will be subject to penalties.
The penalties are adjusted according to a formula.
Just to give an example, if I were an employer with 60 employees and I were not offering coverage, I would pay the equivalent of about $60,000 a year in penalties.
That money goes back into federal government funding to enable the support for people who are buying coverage with federal subsidies.
In 2014, everybody with preexisting conditions will be able to buy coverage.
As of 2014, or, more properly, when open enrollment begins, which will be October of 2013, most Americans will have access to coverage, either through their state exchange again or through a federal backup exchange.
For insurance that is available through the individual exchange, each state has the opportunity now to choose what is called a benchmark plan.
That has to be like a plan that is already for sale within that state or available within that state.
So the coverage overall will look fairly similar to what is out there now, with a couple of exceptions. It's probably going to be a little bit more generous, because there are limits now on cost-sharing.
Of course, lifetime limits have gone away and annual limits have gone away.
Where is the money coming from?
We do that in two ways.
One of which is we have imposed taxes in this law on health insurers, on pharmaceutical manufacturers, on device manufacturers, the entities that will actually benefit because, as more people are covered, they will use more of all of those products.
So those industries have agreed in effect -- some more willingly than others -- to give back some portion of that and help to pay for the law.
The other way we are paying for it is to slow down the growth of what we pay other providers.
To the degree hospital spending would have been expected to go up year by year under the Medicare program, we're going to not grow those payments as fast as we would have otherwise.
We're also not going to grow payments to many other kinds of health care providers, and, in some instances, we will actually cut them.
Keep in mind the reason why many of those providers went along with the law is that we are essentially recycling the money back to them, because, as people have health insurance coverage, they can go into the hospital.
The hospital will be paid for seeing those people, whereas, previously, the hospital wasn't being paid, because those people weren't insured.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/health/july-dec12/healthcare_07-03.html
A small business is eligible for tax credits to help pay for workers' health insurance, for a business that has 25 or fewer employees.
Going forward, a small business person would have the opportunity as of 2014 to buy coverage for his workers through new small business health insurance exchanges that will be set up in every state or that will be enabled to be in existence, because the federal government will step in and help to run those in certain states.
For companies that have 50 or fewer employees, if they don't offer coverage to workers, nothing happens to them.
For companies that are larger than that, however, if they do not offer coverage to their workers or if one of their workers ends up buying coverage through an exchange and claiming some of the federal subsidies, they will be subject to penalties.
The penalties are adjusted according to a formula.
Just to give an example, if I were an employer with 60 employees and I were not offering coverage, I would pay the equivalent of about $60,000 a year in penalties.
That money goes back into federal government funding to enable the support for people who are buying coverage with federal subsidies.
In 2014, everybody with preexisting conditions will be able to buy coverage.
As of 2014, or, more properly, when open enrollment begins, which will be October of 2013, most Americans will have access to coverage, either through their state exchange again or through a federal backup exchange.
For insurance that is available through the individual exchange, each state has the opportunity now to choose what is called a benchmark plan.
That has to be like a plan that is already for sale within that state or available within that state.
So the coverage overall will look fairly similar to what is out there now, with a couple of exceptions. It's probably going to be a little bit more generous, because there are limits now on cost-sharing.
Of course, lifetime limits have gone away and annual limits have gone away.
Where is the money coming from?
We do that in two ways.
One of which is we have imposed taxes in this law on health insurers, on pharmaceutical manufacturers, on device manufacturers, the entities that will actually benefit because, as more people are covered, they will use more of all of those products.
So those industries have agreed in effect -- some more willingly than others -- to give back some portion of that and help to pay for the law.
The other way we are paying for it is to slow down the growth of what we pay other providers.
To the degree hospital spending would have been expected to go up year by year under the Medicare program, we're going to not grow those payments as fast as we would have otherwise.
We're also not going to grow payments to many other kinds of health care providers, and, in some instances, we will actually cut them.
Keep in mind the reason why many of those providers went along with the law is that we are essentially recycling the money back to them, because, as people have health insurance coverage, they can go into the hospital.
The hospital will be paid for seeing those people, whereas, previously, the hospital wasn't being paid, because those people weren't insured.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/health/july-dec12/healthcare_07-03.html