From February 2011:

Nearly every President since Franklin Roosevelt has tried and failed to fully reform our health care system. After months of bitter, fiery, and well-televised debate, President Obama was able to get the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act passed and made into law. 

However, while Democrats tout this bill as historic and Republicans denounce it as a government takeover, it is hard to get a feel as to what exactly is in this new law. Some changes were made immediately, while some will only be implemented this year or later. 

There were many changes made right when the bill became law, such as giving small businesses tax credits so they can give health insurance to their workers and helping more seniors get access to Medicare by covering the “donut hole”, the period where seniors could not receive prescription drug coverage. 

The law also made it illegal for an insurance company to deny coverage to someone under 19 because they have a “pre-existing condition,” a health problem the child had before they applied to join the plan. In 2014, this rule will apply to all individuals, not just children. 

New changes are coming now that it is 2011. In the past, young adults could only stay on their parent’s plan until they were 19, or older if they were full-time students. Because many young adults at this age did not have full-time jobs that offered health insurance, they just went without. Although young adults are the cheapest to cover because they generally need less medical care than older people, there is always a chance that an uninsured young adult will get sick or injured, and have extreme difficulty paying their medical bills. 

The new health care law cuts that problem out of the equation by allowing children up to age 26 to stay on their parent’s health care plan. This change theoretically went into effect on September 23 of last year, but employers were allowed to wait until the beginning of 2011 to fully implement it. 

“My sister is 25 years old and had trouble getting a job that also provided health insurance,” said sophomore Maia Ross. “But now that the health care law passed, she won’t have to worry.” 

Other parts of this health care law are coming into effect during this year. In the past, insurance companies spent much of their customers’ premiums (the money people must pay each month for health insurance) on administration, marketing, and profit. However, now, insurance companies have to spend 80 percent of these premium dollars on medical care and improving health care quality. 

The law also makes it illegal for insurance companies to decide to deny someone coverage based on an “error” in their application. Before, if one accidentally left out a bit of irrelevant information, such as a trip to a psychologist or a history of treatment for acne, they could kick them off of their insurance and deny them treatment. 

There are still more health care changes to be made in the future. The health insurance exchanges will be established in 2014, and will allow consumers to choose between different health care plans. These exchanges will be run by the states and have four different tiers of coverage. 

The “silver” tier is for health plans that cover 70 percent of health costs, the “gold” covers 80 percent, and the “platinum” covers 90 percent. There is also a cheaper tier for people under 30 (the cheapest to insure) that only covers 60 percent of costs. For a health insurer to be allowed on the exchange, they must offer both a silver and gold coverage option.  

Anyone without employer health care can get a health plan off the exchange, and anyone whose employer’s plan covers less than 60 percent of costs can buy coverage on the exchanges as well. 

The House Republicans have fulfilled their campaign promise to “repeal the Health Care law”. Of course, this is merely political theater, because the “Repeal of the Job-Killing Health Care Law” has only passed the Republican-dominated House of Representatives, and the Democratic-dominated Senate is most likely not going to bring it to the floor for a vote.