HR3590 Health Care Bill & Government Health Insurance

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act includes provisions that indicate an important fact: prevention of diseases is as important as the treatment of diseases. Thus, focus is also given towards ensuring that health care coverage for Americans will include access to important preventive care.

According to a feature on the Wall Street Journal, the White House has released rules that specified the preventive health services that insurance companies should provide to consumers at no additional cost. The First Lady, Michelle Obama, gave the following statement: “Services like these will go a long way in preventing chronic illness.”

The regulations stipulate that health plans that are initiated after September 23 should include coverage of preventive health services, at no additional cost. This is only applicable to new health plans, though; those who choose to stay with their existing health plans will not be able to benefit from the change.

The list of services that are covered for adults include the following, as shared in the report: mammograms, colonoscopies and other cancer screenings, diabetes screenings, counseling for tobacco use and selected types of pre-natal care. Pediatric visits, vision and hearing screening, developmental assessments, immunizations and obesity screenings are among the services that are covered for children.

Since it is rare for anything to be given for free, insurers reportedly revealed that new plans will have to raise premiums overall in order to cover the cost of covering the added services. According to the administration, the change may increase the cost of premiums by 1.5 percent annually.