Thursday, December 27, 2012

Five ways your health care will change in 2013

Washington Post
The Affordable Care Act's biggest year is, without a doubt, 2014: That's when the federal subsidies to purchase health insurance roll out. It's also when penalties for not buying coverage kick in. But many of the big changes will start gradually in 2013. They range from increasing payments to Medicaid doctors to upping Medicare taxes to the exchanges' very first open-enrollment period. Here's a quick guide to what will happen in health care in the next year. 1. Health-care cost growth will slow to a new low. The United States is expected to spend a $2.9 trillion on health care in 2013, according to actuaries at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. That would be 3.8 percent more than then $2.8 trillion that CMS estimates we spent in 2012.