What Happens First

From Congressman John B. Larson, Chairman of the Democratic Caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives, the immediate benefits that the American people will see with the passage of Health Care Reform:

• Prohibit pre-existing condition exclusions for children in all new plans.
• Provide immediate access to insurance for uninsured Americans who are uninsured because of a pre-existing condition through a temporary high-risk pool.
• Prohibit dropping people from coverage when they get sick in all individual plans.
• Lower seniors prescription drug prices by beginning to close the donut hole.
• Offer tax credits to small businesses to purchase coverage.
• Eliminate lifetime limits and restrictive annual limits on benefits in all plans.
• Require plans to cover an enrollee's dependent children until age 26.
• Require new plans to cover preventive services and immunizations without cost-sharing.
• Ensure consumers have access to an effective internal and external appeals process to appeal new insurance plan decisions.
• Require premium rebates to enrollees from insurers with high administrative expenditures and require public disclosure of the percent of premiums applied to overhead costs.