Over the past year the House and the Senate have been working on an effort to provide health insurance reform that lowers costs, guarantees choices, and enhances quality health care for all Americans.

• Read the text of the Senate bill and the changes passed by the House.

Health reform promises to make health care more affordable, make health insurers more accountable, expand health coverage to all Americans, and make the health system sustainable, stabilizing family budgets, the Federal budget, and the economy. Legislators tout it will:

• Make insurance more affordable by providing the middle class tax cut for health care and “reducing” premium costs for tens of millions of families and small business owners who are priced out of coverage today.
• Set up a new health insurance market giving millions of Americans the same choices of insurance that members of Congress have.
• End pre-existing conditions.

Health reform built off of the legislation that passed the Senate and improves on it by bridging key differences between the House and the Senate and includes several key Republican provisions.

One key improvement, for example, is eliminating the Nebraska FMAP provision and providing significant additional Federal financing to all States for the expansion of Medicaid.  For America’s seniors, the reform completely closes the Medicare prescription drug “donut hole” coverage gap.  It strengthens the Senate bill’s provisions that make insurance affordable for individuals and families, including protections for out-of-pocket costs, while also strengthening the provisions to fight fraud, waste, and abuse in Medicare and Medicaid to save taxpayer dollars.  The threshold for the excise tax on the most expensive health plans will be raised from $23,000 for a famil

y plan to $27,500 and will start in 2018 for all such plans.

• Read the Overview.
• Read About the Policies in Health Reform to Improve Affordability and Accountability.
• Read About the Policies in Health Reform to Crack Down on Waste, Fraud and Abuse.
• Read About the Policies in Health Reform to Contain Cost and Ensure Fiscal Sustainability.
• Read About the Other Proposed Policy Improvements in Health Reform.

Summaries of Key Elements of Health Reform:

• Title I: Quality, Affordable Health Care for All Americans
• Title II: The Role of Public Programs
• Title III: Improving the Quality and Efficiency of Health Care
• Title IV: Prevention of Chronic Disease and Improving Public Health
• Title V: Health Care Workforce
• Title VI: Transparency and Program Integrity
• Title VII: Improving Access to Innovative Medical Therapies
• Title VIII: Community Living Assistance Services and Supports Act (CLASS Act)
• Title IX: Revenue Provisions
• Title X: Reauthorization of the Indian Health Care Improvement Act