Benefits for working families from H.R. 3962

Okay, so the House has passed H.R. 3962, a health reform bill.  What does it do for working families? Here's a list compiled by the AFL-CIO:

• It will end the national scandal of medical bankruptcy - the number one cause of personal bankruptcy - by eliminating lifetime caps on insurer payments and limiting annual out-of-pocket costs. Medical bankruptcies affect up to 4,000 families every day in the United States - and 78 percent of them are fully insured.

• It ends abusive insurance company practices, including the denial of coverage based on pre-existing conditions and "rescissions" - the practice of canceling coverage when patients file claims.

• It provides subsidies to help middle-class and lower-income families afford coverage.
• Through an exchange, it offers people a wide range of choices of insurance, including a public health insurance option that competes with private insurers.

• It narrows the "donut hole" - the gap in Medicare coverage for prescription drugs.

• It creates incentives to increase the number of doctors and boosts funding for community health centers.

• It allows young people to be covered by their parents' insurance up to age 27.

• It creates a new fund to help employers give health coverage to early retirees.

• It provides for efficient, computerized medical records and other tools to streamline medical care and increase quality.

• It cuts costs to the federal government as well as to families, reducing the deficit by more than $100 billion over the next 10 years--thanks, in part, to the existence of a public health insurance option, which lowers costs across the system.

• It's fairly funded--through employer responsibility and a surtax on the very highest earners, not a tax on middle-class health benefits.

For more information on how this reform bill would help working families, see this two-page AFL-CIO fact sheet.