Opponents of health care reform were right about at least one thing: the bill is looooong. They tried to use that to scare us by saying that if it’s over 2,000 pages, it must be a massive government takeover of health care. But the truth is that health care reform is complicated.
Unlike other industrialized countries, where everyone is pretty much covered under the same system, in the United States you might be covered by Medicare, Medicaid, VA hospitals, SCHIP, Indian Health Service, private insurance you buy yourself, or private coverage through your employer… or you might not have any coverage at all. Then there are the doctors, nurses, hospitals, prescription drugs, and medical devices that we rely on for care. Expanding coverage, reducing costs, and improving the quality of health care in America meant changes throughout the entire system.
What changes? Glad you asked. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act contains ten sections, called Titles. Here on the What If Post we’ve gone through each of them, explaining what’s in each section, and what the changes mean for health care in America.
- Summary
- Part 1: The Exchanges
- Part 2: Medicaid and SCHIP
- Part 3: Medicare
- Part 4: Prevention
- Part 5: More Doctors and Nurses
- Part 6: Transparency
- Part 7: Prescription Drugs
- Part 8: The CLASS Act
- Part 9: Paying for reform
- Part 10: Indian Health Care Improvement Act
