How To Get Affordable Health Coverage

A stethoscope sitting on top of three hundred dollar bills beside a hypodermic needle — African Americans make up nearly 20 percent of 48.61 million people in this country who are living without health insurance coverage, according to the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey.
Affordable Health Care

But on October 1st, the public will finally be able to begin “shopping” for affordable health insurance due to the launching of President Barack Obama‘s Affordable Care Act, which is projected to have a historic impact on our community.

Just days before the launch of the unprecedented health care act, NewsOne spoke with the White House’s Director of External Affairs at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Anton J. Gunn to get informed about how the African-American community can benefit from the President’s new law in addition to learning important details about what the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) will mean to us. Get educated about how you secure affordable health care for you and your loved ones here.

1. Who will benefit from the Affordable Care Act starting October 1st?

Anton Gunn: Millions of Americans, many of them people of color, have been disenfranchised whenAnton Gunn, Obamacare Affordable Care Act wiki it comes to being able to buy health insurance, meaning you were priced out of the market, which means the price is too high for you to even buy; you were forced out of the market, where they [insurance companies] say, “You’ve reached a million-dollar cap on your policy so we are not going to cover anything else”; or you were just locked out, which is, you were born with a pre-existing condition, we are not going to cover that.

Or maybe you’ve developed the condition over time — we [insurance companies] are not going to cover that. Or maybe your child developed a condition — we are not going to cover that. So forced out, pushed out, or locked out of the Insurance market, priced out of the insurance market, that’s how it used to be.

But beginning January 1, 2014, nobody in America can be forced out, they can’t be locked out, they can’t be discriminated against because they have a preexisting condition. You’ll be able to buy health insurance coverage, and the health insurance coverage will be more affordable now than it has ever been before.

And what does “more affordable” mean?

What the Health Insurance Marketplace is, is just think about it just like a marketplace, if you went to Chelsea market [in New York], and you say, “I want some bread or I want a soda. Well, there’s not going to be just one kind of soda or one kind of bread that’s sold in the store. You’ve got choices.

So what the Health Insurance Market does is give you choices of health insurance plans that you can pick from.

For the complete article, visit NewsOne.

To learn more about the Health Insurance Marketplace, visit BlackDoctor.org.

To sign up for affordable coverage, visit HealthCare.gov.