An estimated eighty-three percent of people under age sixty-five who are in the United States legally now have insurance coverage. The plan is expected to raise that to ninety-five percent within several years.
People over sixty-five are covered by the Medicare insurance program which the government created in nineteen sixty-five.
For the first time, Americans will be required to have health insurance or face a yearly fine starting in four years. The law will also require companies with more than fifty employees to offer coverage. If not, they could face a fine of two thousand dollars a year for every worker.
Also, this year the law will start closing what is known as "the doughnut hole." That is a lack of Medicare coverage for some drug costs for older Americans. President Obama promised senior citizens that the reforms will not cut their guaranteed benefits.
He signed the bill Tuesday at the White House, before Democratic lawmakers and people with stories of health insurance problems.
BARACK OBAMA: “We have now just enshrined, as soon as I sign this bill, the core principle, that everybody should have some basic security when it comes to their health care."
The president said he expected the Senate to quickly make a last set of legislative fixes needed in the new law. Republicans are promising to fight the Senate bill. And some states have already gone to court the fight the new law.
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2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25