The health reform legislation passed by Congress and signed into law by the President will make health care work for our country by lowering costs for Americans and once and for all level the playing field between American families and insurance companies.

Here are the immediate benefits that this new law will provide American consumers this year:

• Prohibits pre-existing condition exclusions for children in all new plans;

• Prohibits dropping people from coverage when they get sick in all individual plans;

• Lowers seniors prescription drug prices by beginning to close the donut hole;

• Offers tax credits to small businesses to purchase coverage;

• Eliminates lifetime limits and restrictive annual limits on benefits in all plans;

• Requires plans to cover an enrollee's dependent children until age 26;

• Requires new plans to cover preventive services and immunizations;

• Ensures consumers have access to an effective internal and external appeals process to appeal new insurance plan decisions;

• Offers uninsured Americans with pre-existing conditions the choice of enrolling in insurance provided through a temporary high-risk pool;

• Requires premium rebates to enrollees from insurers with high administrative expenditures and require public disclosure of the percent of premiums applied to overhead costs.

Health Care Reform Makes Sense

Fixing the health care system makes good economic sense, too, according to two recent U.S. PIRG reports.

A new report from U.S. Public Interest Research Group shows that more effective and less expensive care would be one of many benefits of an improved health care system.

The report, which looks at what is called "comparative effectiveness research," finds that for the majority of medical conditions, no studies exist to help doctors – and their patients – determine the most effective course of treatment among all the available option.

Another recent report, entitled Putting America Back to Work, finds that proposals to tame health care costs could allow the creation of 2.5 million jobs over a five year period without inflationary effects, and yield stronger economic growth over the long term.

To download the brief, click here.