USA Today provides an interactive timeline that boils down the 2,700 page Health Care Reform Bill into easy-to-understand dates. While many provisions start in 2010 various provisions won’t take effect until 2018.

Here are revision dates that will impact everyone:

2010

• Temporary high-risk insurance pool: A $5 billion pool would be created in June to provide health to individuals who have pre-existing conditions and have been uninsured for at least six months.
• Pre-existing conditions: Insurers will be barred beginning September from denying coverage to children who have pre-existing medical conditions.
• Adult dependent children: Insurers will have to provide coverage for adult dependent children up to 26 years old beginning September.
• Insurance coverage limits: Payers would be prohibited beginning September from placing lifetime limits on how much they pay out to individual policyholders and from rescinding coverage except in cases of fraud.
• Preventive services: Insurance companies will be required to cover preventive services such as immunizations and cancer screenings for women beginning September.

• Medicare Part D “doughnut hole” filled: Beginning New Year’s Day, drug companies would provide a 50 percent discount on brand name drugs for seniors who face a gap in coverage.
• Primary care boost: Primary care physicians and general surgeons who practice in areas lacking primary care doctors would receive a 10 percent bonus payment from Medicare beginning Jan. 1 and ending 2015.
• Help for long-term care: A voluntary long-term care program called CLASS, beginning Jan. 1, would allow subscribers, after five years of contributions, to get a $50 per day cash benefit to help pay for long-term care.
• Rebates from payers: Beginning Jan. 1, insurers would be required to provide rebates to enrollees if they spend less than 85 percent of their premium dollars on care as opposed to administrative costs.

• Health savings accounts: A national contribution limit of $2,500 to tax free accounts for health costs will standardize the limit. Currently, employers set the limit.
• Good and bad tax news: 1) Employees will be able to deduct 10 percent of unreimbursed medical expenses rather than 7.5 percent; BUT 2) the Medicare tax would increase from 1.45 percent to 2.35 percent on earnings over $200,000 for individuals and $250,000 for family. Medicare tax also would be imposed on investment income.

• Individual mandate: Beginning Jan. 1 most Americans would be required to buy health insurance or pay fines of $95 or $285 per family or 1 percent of taxable household income, whichever is greater.
• Employer penalty: Starting the same day, employers with 50 or more employees would pay a fine if any full-time workers qualified for federal health care subsidies.
• Medicaid expansion: Medicaid will expand to include anyone under 65 whose income eligibility was up to 133 percent of the federal poverty line or $29,327 for a family of four.
• Subsidies: Also beginning New Year’s Day, federal subsidies, varying by household income, would help offset the cost of buying insurance for citizens and legal residents who qualify.
• Health insurance exchanges: State-based exchanges would offer places where uninsured individuals and small businesses could comparison shop for policies.

• Individual mandate: This penalty for not carrying insurance would increase to $325 per family member and $975 per family or 2 percent of taxable household income, whichever is greater, starting Jan. 1.

• Individual mandate: Penalties increase to $695 per family member (up to $2,085) or 2.5 percent of taxable household income, whichever is greater.