The White House Blog

Nancy-Ann DeParle, Director of the White House Office of Health Reform, answered your questions on health reform implementation in a live video chat for Tuesday Talks. In March 2010, President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law — the Act gives you better health security by putting in place comprehensive health insurance reforms that hold insurance companies accountable, lower health care costs, guarantee more choice, and enhance the quality of care for all Americans.

You can check out the full video of the chat or use the links below to jump directly to the questions you're interested in.

Questions are paraphrased.

• Opening remarks
• If this bill is so great, why are so many exempt or opting out?
• Are there safeguards to prevent insurers from raising premiums to compensate for the requirement that they spend 80% of consumers’ dollars on care?
• I am disabled and now unemployed, how will this reform help me?
• Can you think that insurance rates will go down when premiums have been rising since the health reform bill was passed?
• Please put to rest all the outrageous rumors, and tell us what exactly we have to look forward to, plain language please.
• Not one person has been able to identify what authority the government has to regulate health care, can you?
• Will reform close the two year waiting gap for persons with disabilities to get medicare?
• Does the Affordable Care Act reduce or increase annual health care costs for individuals and families and for the country compared to prre-reform costs?
• Will there be a limit on how much an insurance company can increase your rates in a year?
• Are military pay rates being raised for the Affordable Care Act?
• Is spending on health care defined only as claims or can insurance companies claim other costs?
• Is there any thought on putting these sort of regulations for costs for health care companies, on drug companies?
• Will health care reform denial of coverage affect the medigap?
• Why do we have an employer based consumer system?
• Follow-up: Is it correct that insurance will not be able to deny coverage?
• Why are health care rates going through the roof for individuals or businesses?
• Are there any plans to address the increasing rise in childhood obesity in the Affordable Care Act?
• How will the President and the Congress work to preserve the Health Care Law, and what can average citizens to do to help?
• What can we, the citizens of the U.S., be doing today, tomorrow, and going forward to make health care reform successful in our own lives and in our communities?
• Doesn’t the new health care policy cover dental? Especially for younger people.
• Is there a tort reform modeled policy in the health reform bill?
• Follow-up: the question about dental was more about 20-somethings rather than pediatric care?