At the Sacramento Press Club on Wednesday, Peter Lee -- executive director of the California Health Benefit Exchange -- touted the benefits of the federal health reform law and sought to dispel myths about the overhaul, the AP/Sacramento Bee reports.
Touting the Reform Law's Benefits
Lee said the federal health reform law will help more than three million uninsured Californians purchase affordable health care coverage beginning in 2013.
He said the state's health insurance exchange will give "people financial support to choose, in a marketplace, the private plan they want to choose."
He added that federal health insurance subsidies will be made available for those earning up to $93,000 for a family of four with average health insurance costs of $14,000 per year.
Dispelling Reform Law Myths
Lee said that the health reform law "is so far from a government health system that it's mind-boggling."
He also dismissed the idea that health reform law provisions would lead to rationing of health services.
"Today we have rationing because seven million Californians don't have health care," he said, adding, "Today we have rationing because we have private health plans that make all sorts of decisions about what's covered, what's not" (Williams, AP/Sacramento Bee, 7/11).