US insurance firms will no longer be able to disqualify children with pre-existing conditions, writes Lara Marlowe
PRESIDENT BARACK Obama will sign healthcare reform into law today at the White House.
Weather permitting, Obama will sign the Bill on the south lawn, in the company of doctors, nurses and Americans who will benefit from the reform, and lawmakers who helped to push it through.
Also today, the Senate will begin examination of the smaller “reconciliation” Bill, which the House also passed on Sunday night as a condition for its acceptance of the Senate Bill.
One of the main changes in the reconciliation Bill is the deferral until 2018 of a tax on high-value, employer-provided insurance plans, which labour unions and House Democrats opposed.
Instead, the five million richest people in the US will pay higher Medicare taxes.
Obama alluded to predictions of “another siege of parliamentary manoeuvring” by Republicans to delay passage of the reconciliation Bill. House majority leader Harry Reid intends to pass the “fixes” by Friday, when the Senate will break for a two-week recess. But if Republicans manage to amend the Bill text, it will have to go back to the House for another vote.
In the meantime, the main healthcare Bill stands in its present form. That means that this year, insurance companies will no longer be able to disqualify children with pre-existing conditions, drop patients who fall ill or impose caps on insurance reimbursements. In six months, all new plans must pay the full cost of preventive care, including annual exams and immunisations for children. Senior citizens will receive a $250 rebate for prescription drugs in June. Small businesses will begin to receive subsidies to provide insurance for employees, and young people will be allowed to stay on their parents’ insurance policies until the age of 26.
The Democrats hope these measures will find sufficient favour with the public to disprove Republican predictions of a rout in the November mid-term elections. Both parties will start a multimillion-dollar radio and TV advertising campaign on healthcare today and Obama will travel to Iowa to set out the merits of his reform on Thursday.
A poll by the Pew Research Centre last week showed that 38 per cent of Americans supported the Bill that passed Sunday night, while 48 per cent opposed it. Republicans have constantly cited polls as proof that Americans do not want the reform.
The White House strategy, Obama’s top adviser, David Axelrod, told the New York Times, is: “Now let them tell a child with a pre-existing condition, ‘We don’t think you should be covered’.”
The healthcare Bill has been likened to a time-release capsule, whose effects will be felt only gradually. The most important provisions of the legislation – the establishment of insurance “exchanges” or “marketplaces” that are intended to drive down the cost of policies, the extension of Medicaid (government healthcare for the poor) to some 20 million more recipients, and massive subsidies for middle-class Americans to purchase insurance – will not start until 2014. Only then will insurance companies be banned from rejecting adults with pre-existing conditions. In the meantime, insurance will be available to them through “high-risk pools”.
By 2019, 32 million more Americans will be covered.