The U.S. Supreme Court ruled recently that Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), is constitutional. The court decision about the law, which was initially passed in March 2010 and fully implemented in January 2014, assures ACA's ability to provide effective and affordable health care to all. This has great significance to you, elder Americans and the disabled.
The court’s decision affirms that health insurance can no longer have annual or lifetime limits. Before ACA, your insurance would cut off completely and suddenly once you reached its limit. Generally that only happened to people who have had serious illness or catastrophic injury. For millions of people, that often meant the real prospect of losing all coverage in the midst of cancer treatments or other expensive and essential care – often leading to unnecessary death or financial ruin. That’s no longer the case.
Prior to ACA, if you had been diagnosed with an illness or any disability, the insurers could deny enrollment to you. Today, you cannot be denied based on disability or prior conditions.
In late June, the federal government released the latest data on the positive impact of ACA on the percentage of Americans having health insurance. The most significant of the data is that 12.6 million Americans went from being uninsured to insured in just 2014, the first year of ACA's full implementation. That’s great news.