MMedsolution – Medical Dental Tourism Resource On-line

President Barack Obama has signed the most sweeping U.S. health policy legislation in five decades into law. Although details are to be finalized, Obama says that local state opposition will not be able to stop it. The Republicans will fight the detail, but have accepted it will be impossible to untangle even if they win future presidential elections.

The law will extend health insurance to 32 million Americans who currently have none. It will bar practices including insurance companies refusing coverage or renewal to people with pre-existing medical conditions, expand the Medicaid government health insurance program for the poor, and will require employers and individuals to obtain health coverage. There will be tax rebates for those who obey, heavy tax fines for those who refuse, and help for the poor and low paid.

Health reform will offer major changes in the arena of dental care with a lasting effect on the type of dental care that people receive. Millions more will have dental insurance- and this could have an impact on dental tourism. There promises to be a huge expansion of coverage for individuals in need of dental care. The healthcare reform bill looks very promising for people who have long awaited adequate coverage for their dental needs.

The passage of President Obama’s health care reform will make a difference in the lives of tens of millions of people. The subsidies will make insurance affordable to millions of families who could not pay the unsubsidized rate. By prohibiting insurers from discriminating against people with serious health conditions, people will no longer have to worry that a serious illness will cause them to lose their job and then their insurance.

The effect on medical tourism will not be immediate, as the major measures only take effect in 2014. But overseas governments, promotional bodies, agencies and overseas hospitals whose business model is based on attracting some of the 47 million uninsured Americans, and based on the belief that US healthcare reform would fail just as it has in the last 40 years will need a dramatic rethink. It will certainly not be the end of US outbound medical tourism, but it is worth noting that even the latest scaled down medical tourism forecasts from Deloitte had the very important qualification that these figures assumed healthcare reform would not happen.

Using figures produced for the legislation illustrating where the US will be in 2019:
• 159 million covered by employer health insurance plans
• 44 million on state programs
• 25 million covered by individual or small business insurance
• 24 million covered in the exchanges
• 22 million left uninsured.

The uninsured category has gone from the second largest to the smallest, and as the fines by 2019 will be around $800 for each person in the family, the numbers may be far smaller. This uninsured segment will not be a medical tourism target as it includes 8 million illegal immigrants. The rest will mostly be those excluded from cover as they earn too little, or opted out, so have no money for any medical treatment anywhere.

Insurance exchanges will be created in which small businesses and individuals without employer-sponsored coverage can shop for coverage. Plans offered on the exchange have to meet minimum benefit requirements. There are already guidelines on the pre-agreed range of insurances on offer, with no mention of allowing overseas treatment.

The reforms do not solve the basic problem that health care in the United States is expensive. Suggestions that reform will fail as demand will outstrip available resources are just ridiculous. There will be strict controls on what insurers can exclude and new minimum standards on cover and benefit levels. These in turn will drastically reduce the number of uninsured and underinsured Americans.

Initial optimistic reactions from the medical tourism market have been on the basis of the headlines, rather than detailed proposals that are still emerging. There are many views on how reform will affect medical tourism. Some argue it will increase medical tourism, others that it will decrease medical tourism. A few even suggest it will increase the volume of medical tourism from Europe to the USA.

Reform will change the ground rules for those targeting Americans, and anyone looking for US business will have to study the reforms in detail and show that they understand the implications. The American insurance industry will become more powerful with an extra 32 million customers by 2019. Anyone hoping to convince insurers that they should pay for medical tourism will have to be armed with detailed figures, quality outcomes, employer and employee incentives, aftercare proposals and answers on how insurers can avoid medical malpractice suits. A simplistic approach based on cost savings overseas will achieve very little.

source: imtjonline.com