Health Care Reform

I don't often talk about my job.  While it gives me a good income and most of the time I really do like it, lately it's been not so much so.  I can thank Health Care Reform and President Obama for that...

Dear President Obama,

What were you thinking??  Pushing Health Care Reform through like a freight train was a bad, bad move.  Not even considering the costs involved which is a concern for everyone, do you have any idea of the extra work this involves for the average grunt?  I work for a fairly large health insurance company that has already been doing many of the things legislated for years but now it's law so we must do them DIFFERENTLY.  For all the changes that MUST go into effect 1/1/11 we've had approximately 6 months to get them ready to go live and in many cases, it's much less time than that because your government failed to offer any details.  Do you know how much programming has to be done?  How much material must be re-written? How many phone calls we get asking about it?  How many people are totally confused?

In July my group customers had to apply for subsidy money for covering their early retirees - they'd be fool not to do it.  But THAT was a ton of work for their administrators and required multiple reports from me with claims estimates on those early retirees - who aren't exactly easily identified!  Next I had to have them all sign agreements to GET the data they will be required to submit to the government in hopes of getting a handful of that money.

In August I had to find out when the group's plan year started.  Is this their renewal year, their deductible year, their fiscal year?  What if all three dates are different?  And of course, my company wasn't just satisfied with them TELLING us their plan year, they had to prove it - just in case your government didn't believe us/them.  We needed documentation and certification.

Next was "grandfathering".  This was a brilliant idea.  Groups who are broke and have had to make benefit reductions in the past 8 months have to also add MORE benefits to their plans (that increases costs just in case you weren't aware) 1/1/11 but the groups who are surviving okay and haven't made any changes can delay adding those benefits until 2014 or when they next make changes.  Again my company is no way going to believe groups just telling us that they deserve to be grandfathered and they must again "certify" that they really can delay adding those special benefits - just in case your government didn't believe us/them.

Now getting back to having 6 months...in reality it was much less.  We had groups with plan years starting 10/1, 11/1 and 12/1 that had to implement the changes THEN and not wait until 1/1/11.  Are they actually compliant?  Well, on paper they might look like it but I'm not so sure claims will actually process correctly.  Who is going to be in trouble here?

Honestly, I'm getting tired of working like a dog to implement this mess you created and I'm sure thousands of other health insurance type people across the country would agree.  I don't think any of us wants to see anyone go without medical care but seriously, you have a huge population of us tax paying people that are stressing out to the point of wanting to give up....

Not liking you much these days,

Michelle