The Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, included a number of changes designed to improve insurance for consumers.
Here’s a refresher on some of the provisions most likely to affect you:
— Young adults up to age 26 can remain on their parents’ health plan.
— Insurers can’t deny coverage to people with pre-existing health conditions, or charge them more.
— Insurers can’t cap how much they’ll spend on you over your lifetime, and there are limits if they want to cap how much they spend on you each year.
— Insurers can’t cancel your coverage willy nilly. Unless you defraud them.
— States are required to review “unreasonable” insurance premium increases.
— Prescription drug discounts are available for seniors on Medicare.
— All new plans must cover certain preventive health services, such as mammograms and colonoscopies, without charging a deductible, co-pay or co-insurance.
— Insurers must spend at least 80 cents out of every premium dollar on your benefits and improving your care, rather than on corporate jets, plush offices and other overhead costs/profits.
— Your plan must cover mental health and substance abuse treatment much the same way it covers medical care, like surgery.
