About Health Insurance

The open enrollment period for buying 2020 health insurance runs from November 1to December 15. That’s just a month and a half, so I encourage you to start planning now. Although I’m no expert in this space, I hope these short videos help simplify the process.

One thing I noticed right away is that we’ll have half as much time to enroll in 202 as we did in 2014. That’s largely because of Trump Era policies designed to sabotage Obamacare.

Health Insurance Explained, by Kaiser Family Foundation

This [5:24 min] cartoon by the Kaiser Family Foundation explains health insurance using fun, easy-to-understand scenarios. It breaks down important insurance concepts and terms, such as premiums, deductibles, copays and provider networks. The video explains how individuals obtain medical care and prescription drugs when enrolled in various types of health insurance, including HMOs and PPOs.

Introduction to the U.S. health care system

Watch separate episodes here: http://residency-ncal.kaiserpermanente.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Pre-Course-Curriculum_2018_final.pdf

This [11:07] video by Brookings Institution for Khan Academy used one patient as an example to illustrate how money flows through the system. It serves as the basis for deeper dives into each program, as well as health care delivery and payment reform.

Healthcare System Overview

This [8:01] video by the Khan Academy is based on a Q&A discussion with blackboard charts.

Escape Fire — The Fight to Rescue America’s Healthcare

Escape Fire is like An Inconvenient Truth for the healthcare debate, presenting our current path [even with the Affordable Care Act] as unacceptable. It argues that we must commit to changing it. The full movie and notes I captured from watching it are presented here: https://mHealthTalk.com/escape-fire/.

Fourteen other healthcare documentaries are found at the end of my article, Why American Healthcare is So Expensive.