IMMEDIATE FIXES:

2010:

- SMALL BUSINESSES: Tax credits start flowing to businesses with fewer than 50 employees, covering 35% of premiums, to help them afford coverage. By 2014, that will rise to 50%.
UPDATED 3/26/10: The only businesses that get the full 35% have to employ 10 or less and pay them an average wage of $25,000 or less (the wage limitations are not indexed for inflation in the first three years). The credit is reduced for each employee over 10 up to 25 (where you get 0 credit) and $50,000 in average wages (where you get 0 credit). But since the two work together the credit is reduced twice, making it worth even less. The credit expires after the sixth year (or 2010-2013, then you get an additional 2 years if you go into the exchange in 2014), so once the individual mandates and other requirements kick in the credit is gone.

UPDATED 4/6/10: SMALL BUSINESS TAX CREDIT CALCULATOR

Having a hard time trying to figure out what, if any, tax credit you can get for your small business? No problem just click here: HEALTH INSURANCE TAX CREDIT CALCULATOR



- SENIORS: They get a $250 rebate to help fill the "doughnut hole" in Medicare drug coverage.

- YOUNG ADULTS: Children permitted to stay on their parents' insurance policies until their 27th birthday. NOTE: children must be on their parents plan by age 19 (they cannot be added later) and they must be a dependent (not married).

- PRE-EXISTING CONDITIONS: Insurance companies barred from denying benefits to children with pre-existing illness that they make an offer of coverage to.** See Update below**
NOTE:the current law reads that children can still be denied a new policy and therefore would have to go in the state risk pool. Adults are not covered for all pre-existing conditions until 2014.
UPDATED 3/30/10- Although the law is written that insures can still DECLINE to offer coverage on a child if they are sick the health insurance industry has agreed not to decline any child effective in Sept 2010.

- NO LIMITS ON COVERAGE: Insurers can't place lifetime caps on benefits any longer.

- PREVENTIVE CARE: New private plans will have to cover checkups and other preventive services with no co-pays. By 2018, all plans must comply.

- NO MORE RESCISSIONS. Effective immediately, you can't lose your insurance because you get sick. However, you can still be canceled for a material misrepresentation on your application.

2011:

- HEALTH CARE COMPANIES KICK IN: Drugmakers pony up new fees, starting at $2.7 billion. Insurance and medical-device providers follow in 2013.

2013:

- TAXES: Medicare payroll taxes increase - from a rate of 1.45% to 2.35% - for singles earning more than $200,000 a year and families above $250,000.

2014:

This is when all Americans will feel the bill's impact - in their wallets, if not elsewhere.

- INDIVIDUAL MANDATE: Almost everyone will be required to get insurance or face a fine - $95 in 2014, $325 in 2015 and $695 in 2016 (with a maximum of $2,250 for a family). There is an exemption for low-income people.

- EMPLOYER MANDATE: Businesses with 50 or more employees must offer insurance or pay a $2,000-per-worker penalty.

- HEALTH CARE EXCHANGES: These new state-based marketplaces should be open for business, giving individuals and small businesses a place to shop for affordable insurance .

- SUBSIDIES: To help pay for insurance, the feds will offer subsidies to families making as much as $88,000 a year. Out-of-pocket spending will be tied to a person's income and kept as low as $1,000.

2018:

- TAX ON HIGH-COST HEALTH PLANS: A 40% excise tax will be slapped on high-cost "Cadillac" plans starting in 2018.

2020:

- Benefits that began to close Medicare's "doughnut hole" for prescription drugs in 2010 will finally complete the job in 2020.