The Affordable Care Act: What Is In Effect, What Is Yet To Come

Claudia Lennhoff, Executive Director, Champaign County Health Care Consumers

John Katsinas, Manager, Barham Benefit Group, Champaign

Host: Craig Cohen

Perhaps no single issue has been more politicized the last four years than health care. After more than a year of especially rancorous debate and discussion in Congress, and in town halls across America, this country’s health care system began an overhaul through passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010. That law has set a number of changes in motion – not the least of which is a requirement for most Americans to have health insurance, or pay what the Supreme Court ruled this summer amounts to a tax. The Affordable Care Act has also addressed everything from providing relief to seniors who faced a Medicare prescription drug “donut hole,” to providing Americans under 26 with a chance to remain on their parents’ health insurance, to new regulations ensuring patients aren’t dropped from coverage due to pre-existing conditions. The Affordable Care Act is designed do more in the coming years, including funding for state Medicaid programs geared towards preventive care, and the establishment of insurance exchanges, state to state, in 2014.

We thought it would be helpful to provide an hour in which we walk through what is and is not in the legislation, what is and is not already in place, and what it all means for your personal health care. We welcome any questions you have about the health care system, as we seek to take the politics out of it, and focus instead, on how the system works, and what you, as a health care consumer, ought to know about it.