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13 March 2012 Health Care Exchange Rules to Be Set @http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/10/health/policy/obama-administration-to-set-health-care-exchange-rules.html?_r=1&ref=politics

 Summary: This article was about the major changes that Obama wants to make to our health insurance. The big picture of this is to amend, repeal or replace the federal health care law. To try and do this Obama wants to issue standards for health insurance exchanges. By doing this people and small businesses will be able to buy their health insurance from competing plans.  This would make “one-stop shopping” so Americans can compare the prices and benefits of health plans. There would be an increase in competition which will lower costs for us. The federal government is handing this off for the states to deal with and is hoping they will all be ready by the deadline. Relevance: Health Insurance is insurance against the risk of incurring medical expenses among individuals. Companies calculate these numbers and then charge a monthly fee for health care benefits. It’s a contract between a person and their insurance provider but it can be different for each person, depending on what their contract says. Businesses can also provide health care for their workers (Wikipedia). America mostly buys health insurance from private companies but some people use public companies such as Medicare. But health care and health insurance was very confusing and in the early 2000’s many people had debts of over 1,000 dollars (Wikipedia). To try and make things easier, President Obama passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in 2010. This act made everyone have to have health insurance but it also got rid of the most unpopular features of it (Wikipedia). But health insurance and health care has come a long way since then. The first type of insurance was accident insurance which is a lot like the disability insurance we have today. Before the 1920’s health insurance was seen as unnecessary because there was so little that doctors could do for their patients that there was little or no cost (eh.net). Instead, burial insurance was in high demand (Wikipedia). As we progressed into the 1920’s hospitals were beginning to gain popularity but they’re expensive so that’s when the idea of health insurance was invented. Health care was very helpful to older people because they have lower incomes and are the least healthy. But patients were not always charged fairly and ended up still having to pay from their own pockets (eh.net). That’s when Medicare and Medicaid come into play in 1965. Medicare has grown from serving 19.1 million recipients in 1966 to 39.5 million in 1999 and 37.5 million people received care under Medicaid (eh.net). But by 2001 together they are only used by 32% of Americans. And now today even less do (eh.net). And more little changes have shaped health insurance into what it is today.  Evaluation: Health care reform ties in with the politics topic in many ways. First, health care is a very hot topic that many people and politicians have opinions in because it directly affects us Americans. It also is an American tradition that is still being used today. It is also an example of how the government has changed because they started out offering nothing but now have publically funded health insurance. Although we don’t know how much longer we will have health insurance and what changes the future holds for us I think health insurance is an important thing that all Americans need. Some families can’t afford to pay their own bills and elderly people who can’t work also have a big need for that. What will happen to them if the federal health care law is repealed? Questions:
 * 1) Will health care be done away with?
 * 2) If so, how will people pay their medical bills?
 * 3) How will Obama’s changes change health insurance?
 * 4) <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">Will it change health insurance for the better?
 * 5) <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">What will our next President say about health insurance?

<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: top;">"Health Insurance in the United States." //eh.net//. N.p., 2 Jan. 2010. Web. 13 Mar. 2012. <eh.net/encyclopedia/article/thomasson.insurance.health.us>. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">"Health insurance - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." //Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia//. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Mar. 2012. < <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">[]>