by Moe Zilla

Created on: July 19, 2010

Work at home moms will benefit more from the Health Care Reform bill than anyone else in America - though it may take a few years. By 2014, "health exchanges" will be set up which allow anyone - even self-employed, stay-at-home moms - to purchase health insurance as part of a large group. This means they'll enjoy the same collective bargaining power as the employees at large corporations, so they'll finally be able to get insurance at a much more reasonable rate. And the health care reform legislation will also make it illegal for these insurers to deny coverage to anyone, even if they've got an expensive pre-existing condition.

That change doesn't go into effect for adults until 2014, but stay-at-home moms will see a benefit much earlier than that. In September of 2010, children will fall under the new insurance guidelines. From that day on, insurers will have to offer coverage to all children, even children with a pre-existing medical condition. And there's another way that parents will benefit from the health care reform bill: by allowing you to keep your adult children on your existing health insurance plan until they reach the age of 26.

This is important because, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, "Young adults often lose their health insurance if covered under their parent's or guardian's policy at age 19 or upon graduation from high school or college." No mother wants to see her adult children suffering from an untreated medical illness, but there often wasn't an easy way to get them coverage. Many young adults spend those years as students, so they're not receiving health insurance from an employer. And in addition, many young adults are just starting their careers, so their income is at its lowest, and it's the time of their life when they're least able to afford the cost of health insurance.

When President Barack Obama signed the health care reform legislation on March 23rd, 2010, he announced that he was signing it, in part, "on behalf of my mother, who argued with insurance companies even as she battled cancer in her final days." (If you look up the speech on the official White House web site, it appears under the title "On behalf of my mother.") Maybe that's a hint about the biggest way the health care reform bill will affect work-at-home moms. The law eliminates both the lifetime cap on health benefits, and even the annual cap, both of which would sometimes leave struggling families to cover the balance for any badly needed medical attention. That's a benefit that will help both stay-at-home moms - and everyone else with a medical problem.

Now when they have to approach their insurance companies, they're more likely to actually get the medical coverage that they need!

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