A consumer’s guide to the new health care bill

THE NATIONAL HEALTH-CARE bill is more than 2,400 pages long — with hundreds more to come from federal regulators filling in the details.

It will take years before all the details are set and people can see how the plan will affect their situation.

But some commonly asked questions — on how the package will affect you and your family, or business — are answered in a lengthy Q&A in today’s (Sunday’s) Peninsula Daily News.

The Q&A is accompanied by several other health care stories today, on Page D3 through Page D6 (this package is only in the print edition of the PDN):

— A year-by-year breakdown of what happens when.

— What health reform means for retirees.

— The first step: covering the “hard to insure.”

— Big employers like AT&T say the new law may force them to curtail or cancel their benefit plans.

— Changes to student loan programs passed in the the shadow of the health care package.

— And news stories . . . on President Obama’s plans to sign the final health care bill on Tuesday . . . members of Congress heading home to face a skeptical, sometimes even threatening, electorate . . . and Sarah Palin going to “a tea party” with Sen. John McCain and whipping up voters against Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev.

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