The $787 billion economic stimulus package compromise was approved by the House and Senate on Friday and was signed by the president last week. The health information technology portion of the measure consists of $19 billion in investments, including $17 billion in incentives for Medicare and Medicaid and bonus payments for providers who adopt electronic medical records.
This measure won’t save you any money on your Ohio individual health insurance in the short term but over time more efficient recording keeping will lower cost of care and eventually premiums.
Health Insurance Reform
Qualified electronic health records must have the capacity of providing clinical decisions (helping care givers provide better treatments with better outcomes) The measure requires the development of transparent standards for Ohio individual health insurance e-health records by the end of 2009.
Other major health items in the stimulus bill include: $86.6 billion to help the states with Medicaid; a temporary 9-month federal subsidy of 65 percent to help unemployed workers pay their COBRA premiums; $1 billion for wellness programs; $500 million for health care professional training programs; and $1.1 billion to support comparative effectiveness research to determine which medical interventions work best and which ones don’t.
Ohio individual health insurance plans are now as comprehensive as group plans. They can have drug cards, doctor office copays. The newer Health Savings Accounts even have free preventive care (its covered at 100%, not subject to the deductible).
Some employers have decided to drop their group coverage, and help employees to buy Ohio individual health insurance policies. These policies can be “list billed” to the employer (they set it up so that the employer writes one check for the employees policies). The employer then payroll deducts the premium. And this can be done on a pre tax basis if the employer has a Section 125 Cafeteria plan (very easy to set that up). Thus reducing the cost of the policy further by using pre tax money.
Ohio individual health insurance can be found by searching one of these free rating tool sites. Free Benefit Consultants are available to help you pick a plan, find the best rate and apply over the phone.
Compare Plans on Ohio Individual Health Insurance
MYHEALTHQUOTER.COM
DEPENDENTCARVEOUT.COM
EXPIREDCOBRA.COM
HEALTHINSURANCE4THESELFEMPLOYED.COM
LOWPREMIUMHIGHDEDUCTIBLE.COM