Politics The Election's Choice On Health Care Reform

On the issue of health care reform, your choice on Election Day comes down to Obamacare or "repeal and replace."

President Barack Obama's position can be "summed up" in 2,400 pages. That's the length of his Affordable Care Act, the landmark 2010 health care overhaul informally known as Obamacare, which makes sweeping consumer-centric changes to common health insurance practices.

The law is closely modeled after the Massachusetts health insurance reform that Republican challenger Mitt Romney championed when he was governor of that state in 2006. But now, the former Massachusetts governor vows that if he's elected president, he'll repeal the Obama law and replace it with a more conservative alternative. But what that might look like is one of the campaign's big questions.

Obama is promoting the Affordable Care Act as he makes his case for a second term. Go to the health care section of his campaign website to find out where he stands, and what you'll find are links where you can "learn how Obamacare benefits you."

Under the law, insurers by 2014 may no longer: deny coverage to individuals with pre-existing conditions; impose lifetime or annual dollar limits on coverage; cancel coverage arbitrarily; limit doctor choice and out-of-network emergency services; or charge higher premiums based on gender or health status.

The act also allows young adults to remain on their parents' policy until age 26, and it provides a laundry list of preventive care screenings and services to all ages at no additional cost.

To help pay for this expansion of benefits, the law's "individual mandate" requires most Americans to obtain health insurance or pay a penalty. To help consumers find affordable coverage, new state marketplaces called exchanges will open in 2014, government tax credits will be available for low-income individuals and families, and states are encouraged to expand their Medicaid programs to millions of uninsured, lower-income Americans.

The Medicaid expansion had been a requirement under the law, but the U.S. Supreme Court made it optional for states.

Romney's campaign website says Obama's approach to health care reform takes the country in the wrong direction, by relying on "a dense web of regulations, fees, subsidies, excise taxes, exchanges, and rule-setting boards to give the federal government extraordinary control over every corner of the health care system."

The rest is here:

Voters will have their say on fate of Obamacare