medicaid

Happy Belated Birthday Obamacare! In just three little years the Affordable Care Act has made some big changes but has a whole lot more to do. All of the law’s provisions won’t be in full effect until around 2020 but that doesn’t mean the law hasn’t made a big impact already.

Most of us have heard that the law has put a tax on using tanning beds, provides free preventative services, lets young adults stay on their parent’s insurance until the age of 26, will require everyone to buy health insurance, and will create health insurance marketplaces called “exchanges.” Most people don’t know the bulk of what the law has done, so in celebration of the birth of Obamacare, here’s just some of what this ambitious law has accomplished. A full list of the ACA timeline can be found here.

Prevention is worth a pound of cure…

A lot of what Obamacare has focused on in the past three years is preventative services. In its first year the law created the National Prevention, Health Promotion and Public Health Council which passed the National Prevention Strategy and the law required any new health insurance plans to include minimum prevention services. It’s been a good few years for primary care doctors too, as their programs have received billions of dollars in funding and new residencies were added for primary care in an attempt to draw more pre-meds to a sorely under-staffed field. In the past few years the ACA has also focused on workplace wellness as it provided grants to small employers with a wellness program, and tax credits to large employers who invested in certain treatment projects.

While all this has been going on, the only thing that the average person might have noticed is new nutritional info on vending machines and at chain restaurants. But even more monumental changes have been made to the two heavyweights of America’s healthcare system – Medicare and Medicaid. A massive assessment of services is underway with the creation of the Medicaid and CHIP Payment Advisory Board. More immediately, the federal government has allowed states to begin to offer home and community-based services through Medicaid, which means more senior centers, transportation, home health aides, meal delivery or anything else that can help someone remain independent living at home.

Closing the doughnut hole…

As for Medicare, one of the biggest changes was tackling the prescription “doughnut hole.” In 2003, when the Bush administration added Medicare Part D to provide for certain types of drug coverage, the provision did not help pay for annual drug expenses between $2,250 and $5,100. Starting in 2010, Medicare patients started receiving $250 in rebates for brand name drugs, and then the following year they could get a 50 percent discount plus federal subsidies for generics. This year they can receive federal subsidies for brand-name drugs. Doughnut hole closed!

Figuring out how we pay for it all…

A lot of the ways in which the ACA is being funded (about 50 percent of it) is through Medicare and many of these funding changes occurred within the past three years. Some of this is funding received through trying out other models of payment instead of fee-for-service such as bundled payment programs and Accountable Care Organizations, which have recently been piloted. Other funding comes from an increase in Medicare Advantage premiums and a decrease in federal subsidies for this program, as well as a reduction in payment for Medicare patients who have been recently re-admitted to the hospital. This year too, wealthy elderly had a Medicare tax increase of 0.9 percent to help pay for the law.

And what it means for you…

For the future, a big obstacle will be getting the word out! The changes that affect everyone (the individual and employer mandate, exchanges, tax credits, Medicaid expansion) begin next year. Don’t delay! Now’s the time to educate yourself about how you’ll be affected and what your options will be. For all of Obamacare’s limitations, you’re sure to find it’s more than a party favor.