Fact Sheet: What the Health Care Law Means for African Americans

• The law expands initiatives to increase the racial and ethnic diversity of health care professionals, and it strengthens training among health care providers to focus on cultural issues.

• The law invests in primary care professionals to ensure that all Americans have access to primary care providers.

• The law invests in health care innovations, such as community health teams, to help people manage chronic conditions including diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease.

Makes health insurance more accessible

• People without insurance, small businesses and self-employed individuals will be able to purchase private health insurance through state-based health insurance exchanges. The exchanges will be in place by 2014. Uninsured people who are eligible for insurance through an exchange but do not purchase it will be subject to a penalty.

• The law provides access to insurance coverage before 2014 for people with pre-existing conditions who have been uninsured for at least six months. This coverage — commonly referred to as the “high-risk pools” — is now available in your state. This coverage will continue until the health insurance exchanges begin in 2014, at which time all insurance plans will be required to cover pre-existing conditions.

Lowers costs

• Starting in 2010 for new health plans, you will no longer incur out-of-pocket costs for preventive care services such as mammograms, immunizations and screenings for diabetes and certain cancers.

• If you have Medicare, you'll qualify for a new annual wellness visit, as well as mammograms and other screenings for diabetes and certain cancers. These no-cost benefits began in 2011.

• If you reach the Medicare Part D coverage gap or "doughnut hole," you will receive discounts on the prescriptions you fill while you're in the gap: 50 percent on brand-name drugs and 7 percent on generics. (In 2012, the generics discount increases to 14 percent.) The gap will gradually narrow until it disappears in 2020.

• Starting in 2014, if you earn less than about $58,000 for a couple, or about $43,000 for an individual, you will receive tax credits to help you pay for health insurance purchased through an exchange. (Higher income levels apply in Alaska and Hawaii.)

Eliminates discriminatory insurance practices

• Health insurance companies can no longer drop your health coverage if you become sick. Your health insurance is guaranteed so long as you continue to pay the premiums.

• New protections limit the ability of insurers to charge excessive premiums because of a person's gender or age.

• Since insurance companies can no longer place lifetime or annual limits on your health coverage, your health care benefits won't run out when you need them the most. The ban on lifetime limits began in 2010, with the ban on annual limits beginning in 2014.

Helps pay for long-term care

• If your husband or wife is on Medicaid and receiving care services at home, you will have the same protections for your income and other resources as do the spouses of Medicaid recipients who live in nursing homes. This provision takes effect in 2014.

• Your state may receive financial incentives to provide greater access to the services and supports you'll need to live independently in your own home and community.