Posts Tagged ‘Affordable Health Care Act’
The Young Politica: How Obamacare Affects College-Aged Women
You may have heard the word ‘Obamacare’ spinning around the election coverage, but here’s what it’s all about and how it can affect you.
Obamacare (formally known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act) is a set of newly-passed (2010) healthcare reform mandates that ultimately aim to provide insurance to the uninsured by lowering the overall costs of health care. The planned changes, which have already begun and will last until 2020, include:
- offering free preventative counseling and birth control to women (unless you work for certain religious institutions or possibly unless you work for a company that does not support birth control, depending upon how the courts interpret the Constitution on this one),
- guaranteeing that those who apply for insurance with preexisting conditions are not turned away,
- and an annual penalty to those who do not have insurance by the year 2014.
Many of the changes won’t go into effect until 2014 (or unless Mitt Romney wins the election and repeals Obamacare as he has promised, but some have already gone into action.
Here are some changes Young Politicas should expect to affect them immediately and in the future:
Read MoreFriday Round Up: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
It’s been quite a week between the lawmakers in Washington taking the debt-ceiling deal to the 11th hour and yesterday being one of the worst days in the financial markets since 2008. Yet despite all the chaos, this Friday’s Round Up is going deploy Power Tool #5 ‘Carpe the Chaos’ and keep marching forward to highlight some of the good, not just the bad and the ugly – we’ve had quite enough of that…
Splitting the Health-Reform Baby: What Women Lost by Winning
Had I been a member of Congress, I would have pressed the “yes” lever for the health-reform bill when it came down to the vote for final passage. It was incredibly important that we start somewhere to make health care accessible and affordable to all Americans. And we can celebrate, as Ms. magazine recounts in “What the Health Care Bill Means for Women,” that contraceptives will be covered, gender rating that discriminates against women has been eliminated, and preventive services such as pap smears will be covered without co-pay under the new plan.
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