Making Health Care Work

The health reform legislation passed by Congress and signed into law by the President will make health care work for our country by lowering costs for Americans leveling the playing field between American families and insurance companies.

Here are the immediate benefits that this new law will provide American consumers this year:

• Prohibits pre-existing condition exclusions for children in all new plans;

• Prohibits dropping people from coverage when they get sick in all individual plans;

• Lowers seniors prescription drug prices by beginning to close the donut hole;

• Offers tax credits to small businesses to purchase coverage;

• Eliminates lifetime limits and restrictive annual limits on benefits in all plans;

• Requires plans to let you keep your dependent children on your plan until they're age 26;

• Requires new plans to cover preventive services and immunizations;

• Ensures consumers have access to an effective internal and external appeals process to appeal new insurance plan decisions;

• Offers uninsured Americans with pre-existing conditions the choice of enrolling in insurance provided through a temporary high-risk pool;

• Requires rebates to enrollees from insurers with high administrative expenditures, and requires public disclosure of the percent of premiums applied to overhead costs.

Read about how Oregon is well-positioned to put federal reform into action to rein in costs for consumers and small businesses.