Healthcare is hard.

Health care is hard.

My benefits annual enrollment period opened at work this week. I've always been fortunate to have a good job with a good company that offers employees a variety of benefits options. I have four health insurance companies to choose from with five plans each for a total of 20 choices. Premiums range from $600 per year to $20,000 per year for my family of 5 with varying deductibles, out of pocket maximums and choices of doctors. It comes with an 80 page "Benefits Buyer's Guide", webinars, modeling tools, and regular reminders to make sure we sign up. And I am extremely grateful to work for a company that helps to absorb the cost of my family's health care and tries to offer options that meet their employees' needs.

The choices are complicated and much of it boils down to knowing what expenses you are most likely to have for your current conditions and a gamble on whether you'll get expensively sick, along with how flexible you want to be with your choice of doctors. A somewhat informed roll of the dice. It's a heck of a way to run one sixth of our economy ($3.2 trillion or almost $10,000 per person).

It's complicated. And I'm a pretty sophisticated insurance buyer. I've been in the insurance business for 25+ years. I can't imagine what it's like for someone trying to navigate the process without the benefit of experience, education and the dedicated efforts of an employer committed to ensuring that all of their employees get the coverage we need.

As an aside, health insurance is not the same as the the property and casualty side of the business I've spent my career in. It's a combination of insurance, financing and incentives.

But many people enrolling through the ACA (i.e., Obamacare) exchanges are facing just that. A shortened enrollment period, along with deep cuts in advertising (90%) and funding for Navigators (41%) to help people figure out their coverage needs and options.

Like I said, it's hard, but we make it a lot harder than it has to be.

One of the many good things about the ACA is that it's changed the conversation. When Congress and the president roll out new plans, the CBO looks at the millions of people that will lose coverage and the thousands that are likely to die due to a lack of coverage and most people recognize that as a bad thing. Maybe now is finally the time for a conversation that begins with the agreement that more covered people is a good thing and broader access (ultimately universal) is the goal.

Meanwhile, go to healthcare.gov and get covered.