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Expert to decipher impact of health reform
Updated: January 22, 2013 6:39PM
HIGHLAND PARK — With most features of the Affordable Care Act scheduled to kick next January, Family Service has scheduled a free presentation Feb. 25 to explain the changes and the impact on Illinois’ residents.
The presentation, “Health Care Reform: Things You Need to Know Now,” will be given by Kathy Waligora of the Illinois Maternal and Child Health Coalition. It will take place from 7 to 8:30 p.m. at Highland Park High School, 433 Vine Ave., Highland Park. “In our work with our clients, we are finding they want and need this information and don’t know where to get it,” said Paul Dean, executive director of Family Service: Prevention, Education and Counseling, which serves more than 3,000 clients a year in southern Lake County and nearly 7,500 per year throughout the region. “And many do not know that the Affordable Care Act will affect everyone in one way or another.”
Though some features of the health reform law already are in place, such as extending children’s dependent coverage until their 26th birthday, most provisions are scheduled to start in January, 2014. The law, now known simply as the Affordable Care Act, includes a mandate that individuals purchase health insurance in order to spread the costs and risks over a larger patient pool that includes healthy people.
People without employer-sponsored insurance will have access to coverage through new Health Insurance Exchanges that are to be up and running when the enrollment period starts in October, 2013. Premiums will be subsidized for people who earn less than 400 percent of the federal poverty level, or about $44,000 for a single individual and $88,000 for a family of four.
Advance registration for the Feb. 25 presentation is requested, though walk-ins are welcome. To register, call 847-432-4981 ext. 110.
