Health-care consumers won’t feel relief soon

For all the hoopla over the Senate’s Christmas Eve passage of its health care reform bill, consumers won’t be seeing changes to their medical coverage any time soon.

The House and Senate must iron out differences in their respective proposals before Congress as a whole can offer a cohesive bill for President Obama’s signature.  Despite the legislature’s three week holiday break, some pundits are predicting that a new law will be pushed through before the president’s 2010 State of the Union address.

Even so, it will be years before some provisions take effect, as this Associated Press piece, Pain of healthcare reform to kick in before gain, points out.  Uninsured Americans will wait until perhaps 2013 before affordable coverage is available.

For now, keep your eyes on CSPAN for updates to the law.  In fact, CSPAN’s Health Care Hub is a handy site for keeping track of the latest congressional moves.

And this CNN page offers an interactive primer on how to read the health care bills.

Meanwhile, as consumers digest the notion that a bill signed this year isn’t going to be the magic panacea for their medical insurance woes – especially those who will soon max out of COBRA eligibility – you’ll want to provide information about alternative health care and insurance options.  Many of these programs and innovations make for interesting business features as well as personal finance and consumer news.

Here’s a recent survey from eHealthInsurance.com that offers a state-by-state round-up of individual policies priced competitively with what workers pay under COBRA continuation programs.

Talk with the executives of the companies listed for your states about what type of policies now exist – and what new health insurance products are in the works – that can tide over individuals not covered by employer or other group plans.

Speaking of which, here’s a Nielsen report  from November that includes a color-coded map showing which areas of the nation have the best and worst coverage; a review of the study will prompt further questions for local medical center administrators, insurance company executives and public health officials.

The National Council of State Legislatures  offers health-reform background and analysis, as does the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Nitty-gritty consumer topics to cover include the “minute clinics” popping up in drug and grocery stores nationwide; the Convenient Care Association,  a trade group for these store-based treatment centers, cites surveys showing that care is comparable to that received in a doctor’s office or emergency room for a fraction of the cost.

Other consumer-friendly angles include the burgeoning online prescription eyeglass purveyors, university dental schools as sources of quality, cost-effective care, medical tourism and competition among retail pharmacies to offer common prescription drugs as loss leaders at little or no cost to the consumer.

Low-income consumers may benefit from the pharmaceutical industry’s “partnership for prescription assistance,” which offers subsidized drugs to qualifying individuals.

Health care, and health care reform, are gigantic beats that can seem daunting at first – especially when there are still so many unknowns to the pending new laws.  Keep a dialogue open with readers and address their concerns as the insurance landscape shifts and evolves.