Posts tagged ‘affordable care act’
Caring for Crohn’s Affordable Care Act Primer Part 3:
In the third installment of the Caring for Crohn’s Affordable Care Act Primer, I explore the aspects of the law that affect those 65 and older.
The Affordable Care Act is designed to strengthen Medicare, make preventive services affordable, and close the “donut hole” (discounts on medications that fall in the coverage gap.
Caring for Crohn’s Affordable Care Act Primer Part 2: Insurance Choices & Costs
In this second installment of the Caring for Crohn’s Affordable Care Act Primer, I explain the provisions of the law designed to increase affordability and accessibility to health insurance.
Caring for Crohn’s Affordable Care Act Primer Part 1: Consumer Rights & Protections
The more I write and talk about the Affordable Care Act, the more I realize people actually are not that familiar with the specific details of the law. I will do my best to summarize the important parts and provide you with the implementation dates. However, for real specific questions, you should visit www.healthcare.gov– it’s an invaluable source providing all the information you could ever want on the law. It’s also where I got all of the information below from.
Because the law is so massive, I will be breaking this down into several posts by category: consumer rights and protections, insurance choices and cost, senior services, and employers. Today’s post will address provisions related to consumer rights and protections.
New Year, New Provisions of the Affordable Care Act Effective
Now that we are officially in 2013, new provisions of the Affordable Care Act (health care reform) become effective. As I wrote last year, there are many provisions in the Affordable Care Act that are extremely important for IBD patients, like eradicating the preexisting condition exclusions. While that doesn’t go into effect for another year, there are some important aspects of the law that go into effect this year.
Below is a list of those provisions and what they entail. All information was obtained from the timeline on www.healthcare.gov.
Caring for Crohn’s & UC: Year in Review
This has been a great year for Caring for Crohn’s, both on the blog and personally.
After toying with the idea for several months, I finally launched the blog in June. After a few months on Tumblr, the blog was merged onto WordPress and now here we are!
In just six months, I wrote 73 posts and the blog received over 3,600 views, and gained 19 WordPress followers, 50 Tumblr followers, 124 Facebook fans, and 175 Twitter followers. Thank you all SO much for your readership and support– this blog branched out beyond my wildest dreams and I am so appreciative of all of you who made that happen.
Without further ado, here are some of the 2012 highlights for Caring for Crohn’s!
My Belated Gratitude Challenge
I found a blog recently written by a Crohnie called My Journey with Crohn’s. Sarah, the site’s author, recently did a week-long series on gratitude. I’m a little bummed that I didn’t find her blog sooner otherwise I totally would have participated.
Every day for one week, she posted five things that she is grateful for (in the spirit of Thanksgiving). On the last day, she also posted what some of her followers are grateful for. It’s such a great idea, given how unsettling and upsetting Crohn’s and UC can be, to think about gratitude and give thanks to the things that are good in your life.
That being said, while I won’t list 35 things that I am grateful for, I will do a short list here in the spirit of her series from last week.
Affordable Care Act and Crohn’s
For the past week, the Supreme Court case testing the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. Health Care Reform or Obamacare) has filled the news cycle, leaving people wondering if the entire law would end up being repealed.
Today, the decision came out and the SCOTUS is upholding the law, with the exception of the Medicaid expansion provision. This is great news for Crohnies because if the law was struck down entirely, options for health insurance would revert back to the limited ones available previously.
With this huge news, its important to discuss, specifically, what the law does for Crohn’s patients and their families.
Caring for Crohn's & UC 