Health Care

On March 23, 2010, the President signed into law the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” (P.L. 111-148).

Senator Landrieu supported this historic legislation because it achieves the goals she laid out at the beginning of this debate: it stabilizes costs and expands affordable health care choices for families and small businesses in Louisiana and throughout the country. It will also expand coverage and increase choice and competition for thousands of Louisianians. Most importantly, this new law makes private health insurance more affordable and accessible without including a government-run option.

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office analyzed and determined the new law will lower or stabilize insurance premiums, cover 32 million Americans who are currently uninsured, and reduce the U.S. budget deficit by $143 billion over the next 10 years.

To learn about provisions of the law and which ones have taken affect, please read below.

New consumer protections come online

How does Louisiana benefit?

Up to 894,000 residents who are uninsured and 214,000 residents who have individual market insurance will gain access to affordable coverage through a private market health insurance exchange in 2014.

Starting this year, it will prohibit insurance companies from excluding coverage of pre-existing conditions for the 1.1 million children in Louisiana.

Up to 558,000 residents will qualify for premium tax credits to help them purchase health coverage in 2014 through the private market exchanges.

653,000 seniors will receive free preventive services under Medicare.

32,000 seniors in the "doughnut hole" Medicare Part D coverage gap will get a $250 rebate this year. In 2011, beneficiaries in the gap will be able to get a 50 percent discount on brand-name drugs. By 2020, the gap will be eliminated.

Up to 51,000 Louisiana small businesses will be eligible for tax credits for premiums for the 2010 tax year.

Allow children under the age of 26 to remain on their parent’s insurance.

On Sept. 23, 2010, more consumer rights, benefits and protections enacted as part of the Affordable Care Act law took affect. Many of these provisions in the law end discrimination, incentivize preventive care and put consumers in charge of their health care—not insurance companies.

Insurers Will No Longer Be Able To:

Deny coverage to kids with pre-existing conditions. Health plans cannot limit or deny benefits or deny coverage for a child younger than age 19 simply because the child has a pre-existing condition like asthma.

Put lifetime limits on benefits. Health plans can no longer put a lifetime dollar limit on the benefits of people with costly conditions like cancer.

Cancel your policy without proving fraud. Health plans can’t retroactively cancel insurance coverage – often at the time you need it most - solely because you or your employer made an honest mistake on your insurance application.

Deny claims without a chance for appeal. In new health plans, you now have the right to demand that your health plan reconsider a decision to deny payment for a test or treatment. That also includes an external appeal to an independent reviewer.

Consumers in New Health Plans Will Be Able to:

Receive cost-free preventive services. New health plans must give you access to recommended preventive services such as screenings, vaccinations and counseling without any out-of-pocket costs to you.
Keep young adults on a parent’s plan until age 26. If your health plan covers children, you can now most likely add or keep your children on your health insurance policy until they turn 26 years old if they don’t have coverage on the job.

Learn more about these changes.

State-based high risk pools open

The Affordable Care Act creates a new option – the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan -- to make health coverage available to you if you have been denied health insurance by private insurance companies because of a pre-existing condition.

As of July 1, 2010, this pool is now open for enrollment. For more information, click here.

Immediate effects

Small business tax credits: Tax credits of up to 35 percent of premiums will be immediately available to firms that choose to offer coverage.
No pre-existing coverage exclusions for children: Prohibits health insurers from excluding coverage of pre-existing conditions for children.
Access to affordable coverage for the uninsured with pre-existing conditions: Provides $5 billion in immediate federal support for a new program to provide affordable coverage to uninsured Americans with pre-existing conditions until new Exchanges are operational in 2014.
Extension of coverage for young adults: Requires insurers to permit children to stay on family policies until age 26.

These are just a few of the benefits that will take effect in 2010. For a full and more detailed list, click here (PDF).

I still have questions...

For a list answers to frequently asked questions, click here.

To find out when the bill's various provisions take effect, click here (PDF).

For a straight-forward summary of the new law, click here (PDF).

To find out how Sen. Landrieu influenced the legislation, click here (PDF).