Follow us on a tour of the infamous Health Care Exchanges
(Update 9/24- ObamaCare goes live in Oregon on Oct 1. If you want a look at Oregon’s exchanges, go to CoverOregon.org.)
One of the central debates of Obamacare was the role of Health Care Exchanges. While the folks in the administration told us it would be a simple way to compare competing health care plans on an even playing field, the RepubliCons told us it was the beginning of a Stalinist-Maoist totalitarian takeover of America, and was grease on the slide to Hell. Who’s right? Well, now that some of the exchanges are active we decided to see for ourselves. Dante followed Virgil safely on his trip through the Inferno, so follow us, if you dare, as we descend into the eternal pits of fire that are… THE NEW HEALTH CARE EXCHANGES!
The Gates of Hell are traditionally inscribed with the words “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here”, but the inscription over the Gate of the Health Care Exchanges is much more innocent… it simply reads HealthCare.gov. The friendly lady on the homepage didn’t look very demonic, but then sometimes it’s hard to tell. We looked around for the button to click to have the mark of the beast branded on our palm, but not seeing one we clicked on the Find Insurance Options tab instead. A puff of sulphurous smoke and we were in.
We were immediately assaulted with intrusive government 
demands for information. Apparently this “Finder” can’t work without knowing what state we live in, or whether we want insurance for individuals, families, or people with disabilities. Governmental incompetence right off the bat! But we chose “Oregon” and “Healthy Individual” and moved to the next page.
Aha! Here is where the eternal torture would really start! More information! The jackbooted
website interrogated us about why we needed insurance, our age, if we had any special circumstances that could affect our coverage, and if we found it difficult to buy insurance. A couple more checks and it was on to the next page.
At this step the weaknesses of Obamacare 
began to be apparent. Although it promises “choice”, we only got five measly options for health care. Wait, sorry, that’s not the plans available, it’s just 5 possibilities of where people could generally get health care under the new system. The site arrogantly offered to explain “Health Insurance Through Work”, “Health Insurance Plans for Individuals & Families”, “Pre-Existing Condition/High Risk Pool”, “Medicaid”, and “Finding Care You Can Afford”. Not to be fooled by tools of the devil, we picked “Health Insurance for Individuals” and pressed on.
We could hear no screams of the damned as we continued, but surely they must have been waiting for us behind the 
next screen. This one asked for EVEN MORE information about our zip code, when we wanted coverage to start, and who we wanted insurance for. Even though the cold hand of repression was tightening its iron grip on our throat, we entered the information and struggled onward.
More red tape awaited us as w
e had to decide if we were in Clackamas or Multnomah counties. Is there no end to the horror?
Finally, as the flames of Gehenna leapt higher around us, HealthCare.gov delivered its pronouncement… sixty one plans met our criteria! Here is where the devil springs his evil trap! The doomsayers were right all along; who has time to go through and compare sixty one separate plans? 
Obamacare was apparently a massive failure, a government takeover gone bad, a disastrous… wait… oh, by checking a couple boxes the site let us filter our choices by out-of-pocket limit, deductible, monthly base rate, and more. Click, click, check, click… oh. Sorry. Three plans.
But wait! Satan is the Father of Lies, and this only shows the headlines of the 
plan. The Devil is in the details, and surely if we knew the details we’d see the requirement to hand over our firstborn children for sacrifice on Obama’s dark Kenyan altar of… oh. Clicking the big blue button gives us all the details of the plan. Let’s see… specific coverage options, drug coverage, mental health… seems pretty complete.
OK, fine. The exchanges don’t really seem too evil so far. But now that we’d come this far, the battle to leave would begin. We shoved our way past the death panels, elbowed aside the damned spirit of Osama Bin Laden, leapt over the grinning skeleton of Single Payer, and barely managed to reach out with our fingertips to touch our browser’s close button. Just like that, we were back in the real world, the hellish horrors of the Health Care Exchanges dissolving like a dream behind us.
So now you know… you’ve been up close and personal with the skeletal face of health care reform, and you’ve returned unscathed. You know the horrors, you know the lies, you know the reality. But now Virgil’s mantle passes to your shoulders… Please share this cautionary tale with someone you know, and take them on their own tour of Obama’s Health Care Hell. Good luck, and may we all keep praying (or working) for the divine resurrection of Single Payer!
Requiem– If you’re a small business, there’s a special hell just for you. (Of course, you probably already knew that). Clicking here will take you to a three-minute YouTube video about health care options for small business.
