It’s no secret that Americans in rural areas sometimes struggle to get the health care they need. Whether it’s a farmer losing his health insurance because he has no good choices or a mom putting off treatment because it’s too expensive, or hard to find a doctor nearby, rural Americans too often go without critical preventive care – and pay more out of pocket they receive.
So today, as we mark the one year anniversary of the Affordable Care Act, we’re taking a look at what this new health care law actually means for rural communities. And we want to read your stories of how the health care law has impacted you. Here are a few components of the law that are having an impact for rural families:
- To lower the cost of health coverage, under the new law, insurance companies are now limited in how much of your premiums can be spent on overhead like marketing and CEO salaries.
- The new law encourages thousands of new primary care doctors and nurses to practice in rural communities and increasing payments to rural health providers.
- The new law forbids insurers from using an unintentional error in your application to cancel your coverage when you get sick.
- The new law gives seniors freedom to get the care they need, including free preventive care, lower cost prescription drugs, and Medicare they can count on.
- The new law gives farm families the flexibility to keep children on their parent’s health insurance until they’re 26. Having health insurance will allow those young people returning to the farm to have more spendable income to put into the business.
To read more about the health care law, visit www.healthcare.gov. And if you have a story about how the new health care law is helping you, post it in the comments section below– we’d love to hear from you.