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Pulling back the curtains on wage-theft enforcement in MN; Trump's latest attack is on RFK, Jr; NM LGBTQ+ equality group endorses 2024 'Rock Star' candidates; Michigan's youth justice reforms: Expanded diversion, no fees.

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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says rebuilding Baltimore's Key Bridge will be challenging and expensive. An Alabama Democrat flips a state legislature seat and former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman dies at 82.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Report Gauges 1st Year of Health Care Reform

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Tuesday, March 22, 2011   

LYONS, Neb. - This week marks one year since the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was signed into law. In its first year, some reforms were put into place immediately, but according to a new report from the Center for Rural Affairs, the heart of the national health care law, the state health insurance exchanges, won't be established for another three years.

Report author Jon Bailey says these exchanges will be the way most Americans, particularly rural families in Iowa and elsewhere and small businesses, will see benefits from the new law.

"That's how a lot of people, those who work for small business, small business owners, those who purchase insurance on the individual market, farmers, ranchers, small business people and the uninsured, will purchase health insurance, so it's kind of the guts that will make or break the law, I think. "

Bailey says the key to making the exchanges work will be how they work for rural places. He says that, while many people have benefited from what has been implemented so far, it's what's coming by 2014 that will determine how successful health care reform will be.

"That's kind of the weakness of the law, that part of it that most people will see benefit from hasn't taken affect yet, so a lot of people haven't really seen any difference in the one year since the law was signed. "

Bailey says exchange systems needs to make sure there is outreach to rural residents, and to take into account the population of rural areas when setting insurance rates, so they aren't unaffordable for those areas.

The report is at files.cfra.org




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