Peeking into the Immediate Benefits of the Affordable Care Act for Virginia

Healthcare reforms or the Affordable Care Act, as it is officially known, brings a plethora of changes into the healthcare industry as a whole. Talking in specific terms, it addresses a lot of issues related to states, groups, strata and areas-overall, it is very much customized to cater to individual as well as collective needs of US citizens.

The obligations brought by this law provide many benefits to the consumers as well as business owners who are looking to extend health insurance options to their employees. Some of them are immediately applicable, while the rest of them are available with a certain time line. In this article we consider the immediate benefits for the State of Virginia.

• Seniors in Virginia will be provided discounts for Medicare programs hitting the donut hole or gap in Medicare Part D drug coverage. The new law continues to provide additional discounts for seniors on Medicare in the years ahead and closes the donut hole by 2020.

• All Medicare enrolees in Virginia will be provided preventive services, including, colorectal cancer screenings, mammograms, and an annual wellness visit without copayments, coinsurance, or deductibles.

• Virginia has an access to $113 million federal dollars from the federal government to provide health insurance to uninsured residents with pre-existing medical conditions through a new Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan program. This program will be converted to the State Exchange in 2014.

• Small businesses with fewer than 25 employees may check their eligibility to avail tax credit for providing coverage to their employees. Around 14,400 small businesses in Virginia may qualify for this.

• Children would be allowed to stay in their family health insurance policy as dependents till the age of 26 years. This clause will have a direct impact on the purchase of student health insurance and also somewhat on individual health insurance.

• For the very first time, Virginia has the option of Federal Medicaid funding for coverage for all low-income populations, irrespective of age, disability, or family status.

• As consumers, Virginians will be benefited because the healthcare reforms prohibit the insurance companies from placing a life-time limit on the coverage they provide.

• Further, consumers cannot be removed from coverage when they get sick. This is, in fact, one of the most important factors contributing a lot to the individual health insurance market.

Like this, healthcare reforms bring a lot of benefits to the Virginians. However, it has its own obligations levied on the consumers because it mandates the purchase of health insurance by all the citizens. There is penalty for consumers who do not buy a health insurance to support their healthcare needs.

To talk independently, it seems that the pros and cons can easily be bulleted and we will find that there are more pros to their Act. The government is trying to facilitate the obligation of buying a health insurance policy by offering many options and opening new programs.

Shaun Mike writes about health insurance Virginia and how to buy a health insurance policy. His articles on recently enacted healthcare reforms are welcomed by many.