It is amazing to me that after the massive media coverage of the bitter debate over health reform this year, so many people remain clueless about what's in the law congressional Democrats rammed through, and what these changes mean for them.

The average Joe and Jane could no doubt speak with much more authority about the latest legal mishaps involving Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan than they could about the details of the most important coverage they have (or, for tens of millions, don't have)–health insurance.

Yet six months after President Barack Obama signed health reform into law, more than half mistakenly believe the law will raise taxes for most people this year. It won't–unless, of course, you are into indoor tanning (which could hike health insurance costs down the road for skin cancer care), which did get tagged with an extra fee.

Way too many people also apparently believe Sarah Palin's nonsense about the establishment of "death panels" under "Obamacare," in which "bureaucrats" will make life and death decisions over whether it is worth the money being spent to save someone's life. Just for the record, there are no such grim tribunals being formed under the new law.

This is all according to a poll taken recently by Stanford University, working in conjunction with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Associated Press.

People were given a true-or-false quiz on about 20 health reform topics–some of which made it into the law and some of which did not. To deepen our appreciation of the depth of misunderstanding out there, respondents were also asked how confident they were about their answers, so we could see if they were merely flipping a coin to decide how to answer.

The survey found that two out of three respondents were uncertain about their responses on eight of the nine core provisions in the reform law, according to an Associated Press story.

In case people haven't heard, there were some significant developments on the health insurance reform front last week–all to the benefit of policyholders.

With newly sold and renewed plans, insurers can't set lifetime limits on claims. They can no longer dump a policyholder who becomes ill, and they are prohibited from excluding kids with preexisting conditions. (And insurers wonder why they have a bad reputation?)

In addition, dependents up to the age of 26 are now allowed to remain on their parents' coverage. Preventative care must be insured without cost-sharing, and new processes have been established to appeal claim decisions.

Will all these features add to the cost of health insurance? As Ms. Palin would no doubt quip, "You betcha!" However, who would argue against the value of such features? Especially since such additional coverage would only hike costs by the low single-digits, according to most independent studies–not the jolting double-digit increases for health coverage we're hearing about in the media.

Hewitt Associates just reported that employers should brace for an average group health insurance hike of 9 percent for 2011–the highest spike in five years. Employees will have to cough up an additional 12 percent on average out of their own pockets.

Where do we go from here? I hear there were similar complaints about Social Security and Medicare when those two vital safety net programs were launched. When the uninsured start getting coverage in 2014, perhaps that lucky bunch will defend "Obamacare" more vigorously.

Sam Friedman

Editor In Chief