For the first time in history, we have passed a comprehensive health care reform bill that will ensure that all Americans have access to quality, affordable health care, while having the added benefit of significantly reducing long-term health care costs. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act gives American families and small businesses more control over their health care by reducing costs, increasing choice, and instituting common-sense rules that will keep insurance companies honest.

By providing one of the largest middle class tax cuts in history, this legislation reduces premium costs for tens of millions of Americans and setting up a competitive market, giving working families and small businesses the same access to coverage that members of Congress have. Additionally, the law extends coverage to the millions of struggling Americans who have been unable to obtain coverage due to skyrocketing costs or discrimination based on pre-existing conditions. This legislation protects the sacred relationship between patients and doctors, and we must work to ensure that all medical professionals are adequately reimbursed for their high-quality care.

While we increase coverage and reduce costs we must ensure that we continue to lay a foundation for economic prosperity. The Affordable Care Act puts our budget on a more stable path by reducing our deficit by $230 billion over the next 10 years and more than $1 trillion over the following decade.

Comprehensive health care reform has already brought vital improvements to the lives of hundreds of thousands of families in South Florida. The following provisions have already taken effect:

•If you are a senior, you will now be receiving a 50% discount on brand-name drugs if you enter the Medicare Part D ‘donut hole’ coverage gap – a discount that grows until the ‘donut hole’ is closed in 2020. Because of this provision, 7,200 seniors in our district have saved $4.6 million in drug costs, which is an average savings of $640 per person.

•If you are a young adult, you can now stay on your parents’ health plan until your 26th birthday, if you do not have coverage of your own. Approximately 4,900 young adults in the South Florida have gained health care coverage because of the new Affordable Care Act provisions.

•If you are a child under age 19, you can no longer be denied coverage by an insurance company for having a “pre-existing condition.” In our district, there are now 8,000 to 36,000 children with preexisting health conditions who are now protected against insurer denials.

•If you are among 4 million eligible small businesses, you can receive tax credits if you choose to offer coverage to your employees – covering 35% of the cost of coverage. As a result of the law, 760 small businesses in the district received tax credits to help maintain or expand health care coverage for their employees in 2010.

•Your insurance company must now spend at least 80 percent of premiums on covering medical services – rather than administrative expenses, CEO pay, and profits.

As this law continues to take effect between now and 2014, we will see even more monumental consumer protections: including, the complete elimination of restrictive annual and lifetime limits, key investments in our health care work force to increase the number of primary care doctors, the elimination of discrimination based on pre-existing conditions, and the establishment of the affordable health insurance exchanges.

The Affordable Care Act will help 31 million uninsured Americans afford comprehensive coverage, it’s closing the Medicare prescription drug donut hole, protecting the doctor-patient relationship, and bringing down the deficit. In just its first two years this legislation, aimed at fixing our nation’s broken health insurance system, has already helped millions of Floridians live healthier lives.