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Saturday, March 6, 2010

President Obama's Weekly Address

(The transcript is unavailable at this time)

Here are a few more points about how health insurance reform measures will benefit Americans this year:

Hold Insurance Companies Accountable:

  • Eliminate lifetime limits and restrictive annual limits on benefits in all new plans;
  • Prohibit rescissions of health insurance policies in all individual plans;
  • Prohibit pre-existing condition exclusions for children in all new plans;
  • Require premium rebates to enrollees from insurers with high administrative expenditures and require public disclosure of the percent of premiums applied to overhead costs;
  • Establish a process for the annual review of unreasonable increases in premiums, requiring State insurance commissioners to work with the HHS Secretary and States.

Protect Consumers:

  • Provide grants to States to support health insurance consumer assistance and ombudsman programs to help consumers;
  • Ensure consumers have access to an effective internal and external appeals process to appeal new insurance plan decisions;
  • Require all insurance plans to use uniform coverage documents so consumers can make easy comparisons when shopping for health insurance;
  • Establish an internet portal to assist Americans in identifying coverage options;
  • Prohibit insurers from discriminating in favor of highly compensated employees by charging them lower premiums.

Ensure Affordable Choices and Quality Care:

  • Provide immediate access to insurance for uninsured Americans who are uninsured because of a pre-existing condition through a temporary high-risk pool;
  • Create a temporary re-insurance program for early retirees;
  • Require new plans to cover an enrollee’s dependent children until age 26;
  • Require new plans to cover preventive services and immunizations without cost-sharing;
  • Offer tax credits to small businesses to purchase coverage;
  • Facilitate administrative simplification to lower health system costs.

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