Reform

Once again, President Obama hosted a town hall meeting to discuss health care reform. This time it was held at a Senior Center in Maryland, with most of the focus being placed on the changes in Medicare.

As mid-term elections approach, President Obama was looking to shift focus away from the oil spill and place it on health reform and its positive aspects.

Much has been made of how the new health care regulations will affect different groups of Americans. The one group that hasn’t been mentioned much but is about to become one of the first to feel the effects of the new law are insurance brokers and agents.

Under the new law, insurance companies must use at least 80% of their premiums to cover medical care for patients. This limits profits and administrative costs, which covers sales commissions, to a maximum of 20%.

Poll after poll is still showing that a majority of Americans still haven’t changed their minds and do not support the health care reform law. On the other hand, they also oppose the efforts of Republicans to repeal the law.

One of the cost cutting measures to help pay for the health care reform legislation comes from cuts to Medicare. Now Rick Foster, Chief Actuary of Medicare, has just released his own critique of the newly passed legislation.

Rick Foster is one of the few in DC who is willing to go against the White House’s propaganda and show the actual facts and how they relate to the Act. Under his watch, his office just released a harsh critique of the new health reform law.

It’s now been several weeks since the health care reform bill was passed and many Americans are looking for answers on how the bill will impact them. They are not the only ones that express confusion towards the bill. Members of Congress don’t quite understand it either.

Case in point? The new law inadvertently kicks some Congress members and staffers off their health plan. Currently, federal government employees, including members of Congress receive their health coverage through the Federal Employee Health Benefit (FEHB) system.