How Healthy is Health Care?

The first of the Obama health care reform provisions took place in September. Love them? Hate them? Either way health care is a necessity. Should employers be responsible for providing it? Should it be required at all? We in insure everything else - cars, homes, art - are our bodies not worth as much as our possessions? The interesting part of the discussion that doesn't seem to get as much attention is the quality of the insurance. Good insurance can get you access to great doctors at low costs... What about everyone else?

I've also never understood why people don't take advantage of preventative care, when they have insurance. I find it strange that we are better to our cars than our bodies.

Here are some of the new provisions - from SHRM.org Key patient protection provisions triggered Sept. 23, 2010:

• Insurers will no longer be able to rescind coverage, except in cases of fraud. Some patients diagnosed with serious illnesses had reported having their coverage canceled because they had forgotten to list minor ailments experienced years earlier.

• Lifetime limits on coverage will be barred.
• Preventive care, such as cancer screenings, immunizations and colonoscopies, will no longer require co-pays or pay deductibles.
• Employees with family policies can opt for coverage of their grown children up to age 26 who cannot get their own employer-provided coverage.
• No penalization for out-of-network emergency room care.
• A transparent third-party appeals process for denied claims. “As a former insurance commissioner, I can’t tell you how important it is to know that someone other than the company that denied the claim can make a decision on whether or not the benefit should be paid for,” Sebelius said.