Approximately 105 million Americans now have health coverage without lifetime limits on benefits — including 95 million individuals with employer-sponsored health coverage — due to health care reform requirements, according to a new report by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
The Affordable Care Act prohibits health plans renewing on or after Sept. 23, 2010.from imposing a lifetime dollar limit on most benefits. The HHS report took a “before” and “after” view of this requirement, based on data from the 2009 Kaiser Family Foundation’s Employer Health Benefits Survey, a 2009 America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) report and the 2009 to 2011 versions of the Current Population Survey (covering calendar years 2008-2010).
HHS cited Kaiser data finding that 59 percent of all workers with employer health coverage in 2009 had some type of lifetime limit placed on their benefits, with 89 percent of those with individual coverage having a lifetime limit on benefits.
Post reform, HHS estimated that 105 million Americans now have health coverage without lifetime limits on benefits — most of them under employer plans, including 70 million persons in large employer plans and 25 million persons in small employer plans, along with 10 million persons with individual coverage.
The report, which can be found here. also breaks down the data by ethnicity, gender and age, and state residency.