A Baker's Dozen of Lesser Known Benefits of Health Care Reform

Here are 13 lesser known but great benefits of health care reform:

1. It includes significant help for seniors, increasing access, expanding coverage, extending significant prescription drug discounts, and lowering premiums while extending Medicare’s solvency.
    
2. It significantly increases the number of primary care doctors in America and includes new investments in medical training.
    
3. It cracks down on health care fraud by enhancing screening procedures for health care providers.
    
4. It increases the adoption tax credit and adoption access.
    
5. It provides for an ERISA waiver that in a few years will allow states to experiment with new systems – including public options.
    
6. It reforms rating rules so that small employers will no longer pay higher premiums if they have employees with higher health costs due to age or sickness.
    
7. It increases payments for rural providers.
    
8. It makes generic drugs more affordable and provides increased competition for name brand drugs.
    
9. It creates a framework to promote increased quality of care for Medicare beneficiaries, allowing doctors to earn more based on results they achieve for their patients.
    
10. It improves ability to keep insurance when people switch between jobs, providing employees with the flexibility required to start new businesses and pursue new opportunities.
     
11. It provides grants for states to establish health insurance consumer assistance, provided increased responsiveness to complaints concerning health insurance coverage.
     
12. It includes interim coverage almost immediately for those in high risk pools who have pre-existing conditions.
     
13. It makes significant investments in community health centers to double the number of patients with clinic access over 5 years.