New federal rules state that children with chronic health conditions can’t be denied coverage. Now officials are trying to get the word out to parents and enroll thousands of children who couldn’t get health coverage before this new rule. Statistics from the White House show that around 72,000 uninsured children in California alone will now have access to insurance because of these rules.

And in California, the rule was taken even further according to the Sacramento Bee. Insurance companies can’t charge premiums that are more than double those applied to healthy children. But here’s the catch– parents must sign up during open enrollment which ends March 1. “It is important for all parents to purchase coverage for their children to help keep this new requirement from impacting premiums,” Pat Johnson, president of California Association of Health Plans told the Sacramento Bee in an email. “If only people with high health care needs buy insurance, it can drive up the prices for everyone.”

California parents are urged to take advantage of this otherwise they’ll risk having to wait until their child’s next birthday. “There is real urgency. The time is now to sign up children for the coverage,” Kelly Hardy, the health policy director for Children Now, told the Sacramento Bee. The rules potentially impact more than 575,000 kids in California who have pre-existing conditions that may have lead to a denial of insurance coverage in the past. Most are insured through the parents’ employers, but for parents who buy insurance on the individual market this will be a huge advantage.

UCLA researchers say that 1.5 million California children don’t have health insurance, but a whopping two-thirds of them would likely be eligible for public health insurance through programs like Medi-Cal or Healthy Families. “One of the most important changes that federal health care reform has brought about is allowing for children with pre-existing conditions to obtain health coverage,” Insurance Commissioner David Jones told reporters during a news conference according to the Sacramento Bee. “This initial open-enrollment window is critical, and parents should take full advantage of it by signing their children up for coverage.”

This week the battle in health care reform is centering in on Florida. Earlier this week the focus was in Virginia where a federal judge ruled that mandating health insurance was unconstitutional. Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum released a statement saying that the state will move forward with arguments in a Pensacola courtroom.

According to ABC News, the 20 states that are involved in the Florida lawsuit maintain that health care reform will put additional burden on their stretched budgets. However, research from the Kaiser Family Foundation shows that the federal government would pay for more than 95% of the added costs and states would only be responsible for $21.2 billion.

US District Judge Roger Vinson is expected to rule on the expansion of Medicaid, according to The News Service Florida. “The implementation of this law could add more than 1.9 million Floridians to the Medicaid program, a tremendous financial burden on our state at a time when our budget has no room for extra expenses,” McCollum said, according to reports. “As our lawsuit heads to oral argument this Thursday, I am hopeful we will obtain a favorable decision that will strike down the individual mandate and also halt the hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars required to be spent by states to implement the Affordable Care Act.”

Most experts believe the issue will eventually be ruled on by the US Supreme Court. US District Judge Henry E. Hudson struck down the push to force people to have insurance. “The unchecked expansion of congressional power to the limits suggested by the Minimum Essential Coverage Provision would invite unbridled exercise of federal police powers,” Hudson wrote, according to The News Service Florida. “At its core, this dispute is not simply about regulating the business of insurance – or crafting a scheme of universal health insurance coverage – it’s about an individual’s right to choose to participate.”  The states involved in the suit are Florida, South Carolina, Nebraska, Texas, Utah, Louisiana, Alabama, Michigan, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Washington, Idaho, South Dakota, Indiana, North Dakota, Mississippi, Arizona, Nevada, Georgia and Alaska, according to The Washington Post.

eHealthInsurance is offering up tips for making the most of your insurance dollars before the year ends. “Many health insurance consumers aren’t aware that their health insurance benefits and deductibles may reset on New Year’s Day,” said eHealthInsurance Vice President of Customer Care, Gary Matalucci in a news release. ”We recommend that people with individually-purchased or employer-sponsored health insurance re-familiarize themselves with their benefits in December of each year to make the most of their coverage before the next benefit cycle begins.”

Look for Calendar-Year Benefits: Some health plans pay for annual physicals and exams. You may also be eligible for a teeth cleaning or vision check-up.

Take Advantage of Discounts: Some insurance companies offer discounts for gyms. If you’re planning to buy a membership check for this money-saving perk.

Use Your Deductible: If you’ve already met your deductible for 2010, you may want to take advantage of last-minute claims for the year that would be completely covered.

Keep Tabs of FSA and HSA Funds: Most Flexible Spending Accounts sponsored by employers don’t allow the money to roll over to the  next year. Ask your human resource department what your terms are. Also, starting in 2011 FSA and HSA funds can no longer be used to pay for most over-the-counter medicines so you may want to stock up before the year ends.

Check Your Mail: Health insurance companies will commonly send out notices at the end of the year if they plan to make changes to your account. Make sure that when these changes are issued that you’re still using a health care plan that works for you.

One of the major issues that are being highlighted by the current health-care reform debate is the plight of the uninsured in the United States. The controversy is a heated one, dividing along party lines in many cases and making any sort of bi-partisan solution difficult to conceive – let along execute.

Based on the reports published by leading researchers, over a third of all the patients that went to 37 health clinics in the state of Colorado on a single day turned out to be uninsured. This realization exposes the possibility that close to one and a half million people in the entire state could also suffer from a lack of adequate coverage.

Conducting the survey on a voluntary basis was the University of Colorado Denver School of Medicine, which collected information among patients who had private insurance, Medicare or Medicaid. Their research showed an alarming figure: over 36% of the 948 that were surveyed were underinsured.