New ACA preventative health care benefits have kicked in for many Americans and some of you will even get a refund from your insurance provider if they’ve charged you too much.
New Women’s Preventative Care Services
On the preventative care side, technically, the changes won’t kick in until your annual plan renews (or begins). But when it does, women will no longer will have to pay a co-pay for the following 8 services (they will be fully covered by your insurance plan, by law):
- Well-women visits
- Birth control in the form of FDA-approved contraception and contraceptive counseling, but not including drugs that induce abortions
- Breastfeeding counseling, support and supplies
- Gestational diabetes screening for women 24 to 28 weeks pregnant, and for those at high risk
- HPV DNA testing for women age 30 and older, every three years
- Sexually transmitted infection counseling
- HIV screening and counseling
- Domestic violence screening and counseling
These 8 new covered services join 14 previous women’s preventative care services, 16 for all adults, and 27 services for children that previously kicked in back in 2010 (to little fanfare).
A recent survey showed that a large percentage of American women skipped preventative care because of the cost – much higher than any other industrialized nation.
There is no free lunch, but I can only see this as a positive if it lowers overall insurance premiums for everyone and provides better health care for women. Unwanted pregnancies are expensive. STD treatments are expensive, chronic preventable diseases are expensive.
Insurance companies were heading in this direction already. I’ve highlighted how my HDHP covers preventative visits and I even get HSA bonus incentives for going in for my annual physical. If there is one thing insurance companies are good at, it’s crunching the numbers.
And, most importantly, if these preventable conditions can be prevented because more women are taking advantage of services at no additional charge to them, and it levels the playing field with men’s health care costs? That’s a good thing. That’s not a political stance. It’s reality in the 21st century.
Insurance Premium Refund Checks
The other big news in Obamacare is that insurance companies are officially having their asses handed to them, in the form of a required $1.1 billion in refund checks to Americans.
By yesterday, insurance companies that didn’t spend at least 85% of 2011 premium dollars for large group plans (over 50 employees) on medical care (non administrative costs and/or profit make up the remainder) must refund the difference, through refund checks or discounted future premiums. The limit was 80% for individual or small group plans.
The idea being that insurance companies are forced to keep their costs under control to keep healthcare affordable for everyone. And… it is an election year.
Preventative Care and Insurance Rebate Discussion:
What is your take on these two big Obamacare changes?
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Great article. I work in healthcare and there is a simple equation that other, healthier countries figured out long ago.
Prevention and better healthcare access = better health and lower costs for a country as a whole
It is about time this country got on board. Way to go Obama!!!
I agree! Prevention is so important. The healthcare industry could learn something from the dental industry, who promote regular preventative checkups. When we get proactive (prevention) instead of reactive, it’s better for our overall health but also better for our wallets.
I am very much against this. Insurance companies will make up the money one way or another, they aren’t going to just “have their asses handed to them” and then roll over and accept it.
My individual insurance premium will be going up %20 next month, and as a 24 year old single male, I can assure you that I personally won’t be seeing any financial benefit from this particular act.
Full disclosure: I am a conservative and against Obamacare as a whole.
Actually, you will see a benefit.
Think about it this way. Everyone is required by law to have car insurance because it protects others if you get in a car crash.
Required health insurance is the same. It will protect you from paying for health services (which you currently do now) for others without health insurance.
Additionally, prevention keeps cost down for everyone. This is not an opinion, it is fact.
Everyone is politically biased, but this new health plan just makes logical sense. You should really educate yourself more on this topic.
You can assure us that you won’t see a benefit? How exactly?
This is a huge, wonderful step. Unless they’ve dealt with it themselves, no one knows the high costs associated with contraception. Furthermore, a lot of women need to be on regulated hormones like the pill for reasons other than contraception. Prevention is the key, and I hope this is a good first step in encouraging people to be proactive, not reactive.
Confirm with your insurance company that these are in effect beforeexpecting coverage! In NJ, most current small groups wont have thes benefits until jan 1, 2013. Other groups will have them kick in at renewal. All depends on your current group.
Actually, it does cover drugs that induce abortion.