Starting immediately, coverage is being extended to every child up to 24 years of age, regardless of whether the child is making any attempt to make their life productive. This will jump to 26 years old in a few months. This particular feature is a direct result of the Obama Care requirements.
The policy that takes effect in 2011 will no longer be billed on the benefits you desire, rather, on the amount you earn. If you are close to a $50,000 annual salary, you may want to skip that next raise since it may cause your monthly paycheck deduction for medical expenses to triple. Starting from the baseline of the 2010 deduction amounts, employees will have their monthly expenses cut in half, if they are covering their whole family. If the employee only covers a partner or children, the deduction is 30%. For an employee only covering herself, the discount is only 10%. Employees that earn between $50,000 and $100,000 will get a decrease of 15%, 10%, or 5%. Those that earn over $100,000 will have a 14% increase in their premiums.
There's no reason to call the coverage insurance, anymore, because they have removed all restrictions for pre-existing conditions and preventive care is covered at 100%. There will also be NO LIMIT for any medical expenditure. This means that the common policy, shared between the young, the healthy, the elderly, and the careless, will be on the hook for unlimited expenses (e.g. cancer, heart disease, HIV, diabetes, and asthma). However, anything you get from the pharmacy, that you don't have a prescription for, will have no hope of being covered by any reimbursement plan.
How will they pay for these "benefits"? They are doing so by removing one of the most effective methods of managing health care costs: the Health Savings Account / Medical Reimbursement Account.
Joe The Plumber asked the question that is now on the minds of every employee of Bank of America that doesn't have money to burn: What is my incentive to succeed when "you're going to tax me more"? Socialism just spreads the costs around. It never gets around to creating any wealth to share; at least not beyond those who have firmly situated themselves at the top.
