The president is making many changes to how healthcare is going to work. A lot of these changes are going to affect teens and children all over the country in many ways.
The new healthcare bill cannot deny children coverage based on pre- existing conditions. Even though that is good for them, Dr. Lewis Krenn of Willard thinks that young people will likely pay the most for healthcare. He says “Young people will likely bear the brunt of the costs for this new legislation through both higher taxes and higher insurance premiums. In order for an insurance company to maintain their profit levels they must have an equal number of young, healthy patients who don’t cost them a lot balanced with an equal number of older, more costly patients. Since the new legislation mandates coverage and sets the difference an insurance company can charge a less healthy patient vs. a healthy, patient, the younger, healthier patient will have to pay more to maintain that difference. In the past, the insurance company was allowed to charge an older, unhealthy patient more to offset their costs; this is not the case now.” Starting in 2014 insurance companies cannot deny coverage to anyone.
Some people approve of the healthcare reform and some do not approve. The consensus was about 57% of people were pleased by the bill, but 43% were not pleased.http://www.issaquahpress.com/2010/04/27/teen-talk-how-do-you-think-the-health-care-law-will-affect-you/ Dalton Alexander, a high school student, says that “I do not approve of the new healthcare bill that Barrack Obama approved of. I think it’s inadequate. Honestly, I believe it will not affect us youngsters. I have not read the whole 685 page long healthcare bill. I think it is the worst idea ever… “ One of the new laws is that children can stay on their parents health insurance until they are 26 years old. Previously the age limit was 22-25 years old.
Some people are worried that the quality of healthcare will go down once the bill is in effect. Dr. Krenn said he thinks, “at this point I don’t think we know how the quality of healthcare will be effected. So much of the healthcare bill is left to the Health and Human Services Secrectary http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=111_cong_bills&docid=f:h3200ih.pdf to define and none of that has been done yet. The politicians who passed this bill did not even know the full extent of how the bill would affect persons, so it’s hard to know what will happen once everyone understands the actual language of the bill. Medicare enrollees certainly stand to be harmed from this healthcare bill if some services they currently receive or our eligible for are cut in order to pay for the bill.” One thing that people know is that the government will still have to have the wellness program. Six months after the bill becomes a law qualified health plans will have to provide with no cost-sharing, immunizations and other preventive health services for infants, children, and adolescents.http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/0322/Health-care-reform-bill-101-What-does-it-mean-for-kids-and-families
By: Amanda Bradley and Taylor Dorman
WHS Journalism I 