So as I wanted to include the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 signed in March of the previous year, I started to do some research about it and its contents during the last days. The first thing I learned was that there is actually not as much on the web as it is concerning the PPACA. There is not much quality stuff on it besides the original text, but luckily opencongress.org made me aware of a “plain English” summary by the House Rules Committee. Again, it always depends on the time and effort you can or want to invest. Anyway, this part of the health care reform does not seem to be that well known. Because of this, I will summarise it and limit myself to not more than 10 lines again:
The act amended the PPACA. It consists of two major parts: title I is headed “Coverage, Medicare, Medicaid and Revenues” and states, among other things, that: the income level for premiums and cost sharing is raised, the fines for remaining uninsured are reduced, 1 billion dollars are provided for the implementation of the reform, Medicare will profit from up to 75% discount on brand-name drugs by 2020 and grow more efficient (just like Medicaid), more money will be invested to reduce fraud and abuse in health care, implementation of taxes for health insurance providers and medical device manufacturers are postponed. Title II, named “Health, Education, Labour and Pensions”, includes that: more money is provided to support students and specifies loaning conditions, rejection due to pre-existing conditions will be illegal by 2014, more investments are made for community health centres.
