The Obamacare exchanges and me

I opened a letter from my medical insurance company the other day that informed me that as of October 1, my plan will no longer exist. I was invited to shop for coverage on the state’s new health insurance exchange, as created by Obamacare. Honestly, I couldn’t be happier.

When I returned to individual insurance about a year ago, I felt that my choices had gone from bad to worse. My all-self-employed family of three now paid about $600 a month for a $10,000 deductible and a little bit of preventative care. We added another $300 a month to our Health Savings Account and used that to cover any actual medical bills.

In other words, in reality we paid this insurance company $7,200 a year—more than 10 percent of our annual income—to do nothing.

I am not at all sorry to have a mechanism to find something better. Maybe I will be unhappy with my options; maybe I won’t be able to find a better deal. But I am not sure it could be worse.