The failure of good intentions

A search for “Obamacare failure” leads to 69 million results, as of today.

In large part this is not an issue for me. When I moved back to Colorado from Florida in 2012 and set up my business it was much cheaper for me to opt-in to an individual health insurance account with Kaiser Permanente than it was to try to figure out how or whether my (much more expensive) Florida based Cobra  plan would or could work in Colorado. Previously, I’d been in the Kaiser Permanente system for over a decade. And while at first I found their algorithmic approach to medical care a bit abrupt and impersonal, over the years I became  very content with the process. I was well; I got the care I needed. And especially since circa 2003 or so, no one, in my opinion, has been doing medical records and complete medical history integration better.

With my new job, and terrific new health insurance, I’d had every intention of cancelling my individual policy with Kaiser Permanente this year. I did want one more visit with my fantastic Primary Care doctor (yesterday) – Susan Taylor – if you are in the front range of CO and in the KP system…she’s terrific – before I did. And maybe without all of the changes being pushed down federally I’d have kept my individual policy on top of the fantastic one provided by my employer. But here is the new choice….(at the time I viewed it; subject to change until I choose to opt in by mid December).

Yellow highlights are far worse than the current plan; the sole blue highlight is an improvement. And there is a significant amount of additional fine print associated with the proposed Obamacare compliant policy. And truly my work policy is better, and mostly covered by my employer, etc. I am lucky to have these choices. Interestingly, for most people in Colorado, Obamacare caused a DECREASE in insurance premiums by 22% – see Forbes Article but overall in the USA an increase of 41%. I am not young or male (the hardest hit demographics), so don’t have a good reason why my costs were forecast to increase so much vs. the coverage provided given that I live in Colorado.

I don’t have a big rant re: the current US healthcare system as I don’t have a comprehensive solution to offer up instead; but I continue to ponder how a less affluent nation like Thailand was able to offer a tourist like me such great care paying full price at such a relatively low cost. I think a large part of the problem is all of the gate keepers who assign codes and costs and decide whether or not certain procedures are covered to what % for which patients. 100’s of man hours for $10 drugs, devices and procedures. But that’s only part of the problem.