Northwest Regional Primary Care Association, Lynn Gerlach, Member Services Coordinator
I don’t know about you, but I find the whole concept of insurance “exchanges,” particularly the ideas of interstate exchanges and Federal/state partnership exchanges, so revolutionary that I have trouble wrapping my head around it. I grew up in a culture in which one simply expected affordable—even free—health insurance benefits through one’s employer. Never in my wildest dreams did I believe I might pay in excess of 10% of my income to a health insurance company. And never had I entertained the possibility of an individual or small employer “shopping” for the best deal in an insurance marketplace. And then the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) became a reality, and I had to start thinking about health insurance in a whole new way.