The Obama administration put out new federal rules today to explain how the first new consumer protections will work. In doing so, they added some details to one protection that is pretty vague in the law: new restrictions on how much your health plan can limit your benefits in any given year.

Right now, your health insurance company can put a cap on how much they’ll pay in benefits each year. That’s a problem if you get an expensive illness, like cancer, that might cause your medical expenses to go way up in one year because of all the treatment costs. So the law says those annual payment limits will be restricted until 2014, and then they will be banned completely.

But the law doesn’t say how much the limits will be restricted, so there are no details in the book (Chapter 2, “Fixing the Insurance Market,” and Chapter 8, “While You’re Waiting … “). The new rules, however, explain how it will be done. The plan is to ratchet the limits upwards each year, gradually phasing them out.

Starting on Sept. 23 this year, no plan will be able to limit your benefits to less than $750,000 a year. On Sept. 23, 2011, those limits will have to be raised to $1.25 million. As of Sept. 23, 2012, the limits will go up to $2 million. And starting on Jan. 1, 2014, no health plan that is either issued or renewed after that date will be able to limit your annual benefits at all. (This will be true for all health plans except individual health insurance that is “grandfathered,” meaning that it stays pretty much the way it is and is therefore exempt from some of the new rules.)

The rest of the rules cover other consumer protections that start Sept. 23. As of that date, most health plans will have to cover your children even if they have pre-existing conditions; they won’t be able to cancel your coverage if you get sick; and they won’t be able to limit the benefits they’ll pay over your lifetime. They will also have to let you see the primary care physician or pediatrician of your choice, let you go directly to an OB-GYN, and pay for your emergency room visit even if you had to go outside the network.

You can read the rules here, if you dare.