Health reform is already making a difference by:
Providing better value for your premium dollar through the 80/20 Rule – Under the new health care law, insurance companies must provide consumers greater value by spending generally at least 80 percent of premium dollars on health care and quality improvements instead of overhead, executive salaries or marketing. If they don’t, they must provide consumers a rebate or reduce premiums. This means that 1,001,476 New York residents with private insurance coverage will benefit from $86,526,642 in rebates from insurance companies this year. These rebates will average $138 for the 627,000 families in New York covered by a policy.
Scrutinizing unreasonable premium increases – In every State and for the first time under Federal law, insurance companies are required to publicly justify their actions if they want to raise rates by 10 percent or more. New York has received $5,469,996 under the new law to help fight unreasonable premium increases.
Removing lifetime limits on health benefits – The law bans insurance companies from imposing lifetime dollar limits on health benefits – freeing cancer patients and individuals suffering from other chronic diseases from having to worry about going without treatment because of their lifetime limits. Already, 6,432,000 residents, including 2,529,000 women and 1,609,000 children, are free from worrying about lifetime limits on coverage. The law also restricts the use of annual limits and bans them completely in 2014.
Watch for more info to come.
