BY JULIE APPLEBY

KAISER HEALTH NEWS

Consumers and employers who buy health insurance are scrambling to understand what will change in their premiums and benefits once provisions of the recently passed law go into effect.

Unlike state insurance laws, which mostly affect policies individually purchased or offered through small and mid-sized businesses, the new federal legislation applies more broadly to nearly all types of private plans, say insurers and employer benefit experts. That includes policies offered by large self-insured employers, through whom about half of the nation's covered workers get their insurance.

Some new rules — such as barring insurers from rejecting children with medical conditions or from canceling policies retroactively — are aimed at problems that mainly affect the 17 million people who buy their own insurance in the so-called non-group market.