Obamacare really DOES care. Americans to receive 1.3 billion in health care rebates.

Courtesy of MSNBC:

Millions of consumers and small businesses will receive an estimated $1.3 billion in rebates from their health plans this summer under a provision of the health care law that effectively limits what insurers can charge for administration and profits, a new study projects. 

Almost one third of people who bought their own insurance last year will get rebates averaging $127, according to an analysis of state data by the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation. (KHN is an editorially independent program of the foundation.) 

"This alone is not going to make health insurance affordable for large numbers of people, but it is getting excess administrative cost out of the system," says Larry Levitt, a study author. 

The percentage of consumers and businesses in line for rebates varies widely by state. In Texas, for example, 92 percent of consumers who purchased individual policies are expected to get rebates because insurers spent too little of their premium dollars on medical care. But in Vermont, Rhode Island, Iowa and Hawaii, insurers are likely to owe less than 1 percent of consumers who bought policies on the individual market. 

Nationally, an estimated 3.4 million people who bought their own coverage are projected to receive rebates this year from 215 insurance plans, according to the study. The biggest dollar amounts are expected to go to consumers in Alaska, where per person rebates are expected to average $305, Maryland, $294, Pennsylvania, $243 and Idaho, $241. Insurers hit the spending targets for policies sold directly to consumers in several states, including Hawaii, Maine and the District of Columbia, so no rebates are expected for individual consumers there. 

More than a dozen states sought to relax the standard for insurance sold directly to consumers, saying it would cause insurers to withdraw from their markets. The Obama administration granted seven such requests, choosing to phase in the requirement between now and 2014 in Georgia, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Nevada, New Hampshire and North Carolina. 

Rebates averaging $76 per enrollee are projected to go to more than one quarter of small businesses nationally, covering an estimated 4.9 million people. When averaged by state, the biggest per-enrollee rebates will go to businesses in Alaska at $517 and Alabama, at $203 and Oregon, $172. No rebates will go to small businesses in eight states, where insurers met their spending targets, including Hawaii, Minnesota and North Dakota.

Interesting that the state which benefits the most from these rebates is also the state which produced the biggest loudmouth to speak out against the Affordable Care Act, Sarah "Death Panels" Palin.

And perhaps Alaskans should also take note that our current Governor filed suit, along with 20 other states, to overturn the new reforms. Think about that my friends while you are spending your $305 at Costco.

Of course this is only the beginning, and many of the most impressive, and impactful changes to health care in this country are still yet to come.

Unless of course the radically conservative leaning Supreme Court decides to throw the whole thing out that is.