How does health care reform work? Here's a simple infographic that breaks down how health care reform works, the philosophy of guaranteed-issue policies and how much health care reform costs.
Disclaimer: This infographic was created by Center for American Progress and reflects their views on health reform. The views represented in this infographics does not necessarily reflect the views of Zane Benefits, its staff or its affiliates.
Source: Center for American Progress
Here is the summary of the infographic, from the Center for American Progress:
People will be covered in three ways:
The current system allows insurance companies to deny coverage to anyone who has a pre-existing condition. The new system would prevent insurance companies from denying coverage to those with pre-existing conditions. But, if insurance companies are required to cover pre-existing conditions, but everyone is not required to have coverage, then health people could go without coverage and only sign up with they're sick. This would leave insurance companies with rosters of the sick and premiums would skyrocket for every one.
The new system will cost about $100 billion each year. Much of these new funds will be used to provide tax credits to offset costs for those individuals, families, and small businesses that still cannot afford to buy insurance and other improvements to the health care system.
This is a lot of money, but the proposal includes a way to pay the entire cost so that none of these changes will add to the nation’s deficit. In fact, health reform will actually reduce health care costs and leave the nation better off, reducing the federal deficit by billions of dollars over the next 10 years. Much of the money to pay for these changes comes from paying closer attention to the over $2 trillion we now spend every year on health care.