For liberals, one of the most frustrating aspects of health care reform is that the most tangible goodies (the exchanges, and, within the exchanges, the public option) won’t be available to the public for years. In the House bill, the main structural changes to the health care system–including the exchanges/public option, mandates, taxes, and the Medicaid expansion–go into effect in 2013. Under the Senate bill, they take until 2014.
But there are some aspects of the bill that would take effect right away if the bill became law as is. For instance, the Senate bill would immediately ban insurance companies from imposing annual and lifetime caps on benefits, and would make it illegal for them to cancel people’s policies (a practice called rescission) except in cases of fraud.
There’s more, too, and we’ll bring you a fuller set of details later today.
