Curious about how the health care reforms affect you? Here's a breakdown (from my employer FBMC, a Premier Benefit Management company):

Short answer: It doesn't affect you financially until 2014. After that you'll have to have health insurance like you have to have car insurance. If you work for someone with fewer than 25 employees (with an average income of less than $50k) or you make less than about $10k a year, you're not required to have health insurance but you're guaranteed to have it available to you and you'll be given a lot of incentives (money) to get health insurance. If your employer doesn't offer it to you, your employer will be fined $2000 a year (starting in 4 years). If you don't have it, it'll cost you about $100 in 2014, $700 in 2016, and up to $2200 after I think 2020.

Over all getting health insurance will be cheaper and keeping your insurance is guaranteed even if you change employers, get cancer, have a sick child, or are considered "uninsurable", even if you don't have a job, even if you don't have money to pay for it.

If you have a religious objection to health care and doctors, you are also exempt.0

Here's a detail of what's gonna happen and when:

Immediate
* Tax credits of up to 35 percent of premiums will be immediately available to small firms that choose to offer coverage.

90 days (June 2010)
* Temporary re-insurance program (until the Exchanges are available) to help offset the costs of expensive health claims for employers that provide health benefits for retirees age 55-64.
* Temporary high risk pool will provide immediate access to insurance for Americans who are uninsured because of a pre-existing condition.

6 Months (Sept 2010 - typical enrollment time for 2011)
* Requires health plans to allow young people up to their 26th birthday to remain on their parents' insurance policy, at the parents' choice.
* Health plans banned from dropping people from coverage when they get sick.
* Insurance companies cannot deny children coverage based on a preexisting condition.
* Health plans prohibited from placing lifetime caps on coverage.
* New plans tightly restricted on use of annual limits (HHS will define the restrictions)
* New group health plans prohibited from establishing eligibility rules for health care coverage that discriminate in favor of higher wage employees.
* New private plans required to cover preventive services with no co-payments and with preventive services being exempt from deductibles. Effective 6 months after enactment. (Beginning in 2018, this requirement applies to all plans.)

2010
* Medicare beneficiaries who hit the donut hole in 2010 will receive a $250 rebate.
* Funding for Community Health Centers will be increased to service the projected doubling of the number of patients seen by the centers over the next 5 years.

2011
* Over the Counter (OTCs) as eligible 213(d) expense limited to physician RX only.
* Medicare beneficiaries in the donut hole will receive a 50% discount on brand name drugs.
* Co-pays eliminated for preventive services and preventive service deductibles exempted under the Medicare program.
* Long-term care insurance program created to provide benefits to adults who become functionally disabled (financed by voluntary payroll deductions).
* To ensure value for cost of premiums plans in the individual and small group market required to spend 80 percent of premium dollars on medical services; plans in the large group market required to spend 85 percent. Rebates to policy holders are required by Insurers that do not meet these thresholds.
* Voluntary Long Term Care Insurance Program created.

2012
* Medicare Payroll tax on investment income -- the Medicare Payroll Tax will be expanded to include unearned income. That will be a 3.8 percent tax on investment income for families making more than $250,000 per year ($200,000 for individuals

2013
* FSA Cap of $2,500 becomes effective (indexed to CPI)

2014
* Separate Health Insurance exchanges would be created for small businesses to purchase coverage. The uninsured and self-employed would be able to purchase insurance through state-based exchanges with subsidies available to individuals and families with income between the 133 percent and 400 percent of poverty level.
* States required to expand Medicaid to include childless adults. Federal Government pays 100 percent of costs for covering newly eligible individuals through

2016.
* Insurance companies cannot deny coverage to anyone with preexisting conditions.
* Everyone must purchase health insurance or face a $695 annual fine. There are some exceptions for low-income people.
* Annual coverage limits banned for all health plans.

2015
* Funding to establish the Separate Health Insurance exchanges becomes available

2018
* Excise Tax -- Insurance companies will pay a 40 percent excise tax on "Cadillac" insurance plans worth over $27,500 for families, $10,200 for individuals (indexed to CPI). Dental and vision plans are exempt and will not be counted in the total cost of a family's plan.
* All plans required to cover preventive services with no co-payments and with preventive services being exempt from deductibles.

2020
* Medicare prescription drug "donut hole" closed.