Plunging into health care access has been like going back to college. Since leaving the education beat to take on a new assignment, my head is spinning with new ideas, groups and acronyms (though I confess I haven't read the 2,409-page Affordable Care Act).
I took the Christian Science Monitor's quiz on the act and scored a slightly-above-average 74 percent. (I'm considering this a "before" benchmark.) Mostly I missed questions about other states' standings, though I also overestimated the number of people who lacked health insurance when the act took effect (it's 53 million).
I watched a Jimmy Kimmel video that drove home the need for good information on the topic. His interviews show person after person saying they hate Obamacare but like the Affordable Care Act, unaware that they're two names for the same thing.
I checked out "mythbuster" sites from PolitiFact.com and FactCheck.org. Both mentioned something that was new to me: Members of Congress lost their federal employee insurance and were required to get their insurance through the new marketplaces this year (though they get an "employer contribution" from the federal government).
I sent queries last week to the press offices of Sens. Richard Burr and Kay Hagan and Reps. Robert Pittenger, Patrick McHenry and Richard Hudson asking about their experiences with choosing, buying and using their new plans. Pittenger's press secretary said Pittenger, a Republican who represents the Ninth District, refused to accept the subsidy. But neither he nor any of the others have replied to the questions about their experience. I'll keep trying and let you know what they say.
Even during this slow stretch between open enrollment periods, there's a steady stream of news, polls, studies and opinions about our country's efforts to reshape access to health care. I'll be sharing some of that here for discussion.
But my biggest interest is in what's playing out in real people's lives. Who's getting care and who's hitting roadblocks? What will all this mean for families, businesses and taxpayers? What do readers need to know, as health-care consumers and voters, to move forward?
My contact information is at right, so please share stories that might not work as a blog comment. Readers' tips, comments and questions enriched my education coverage for many years, and I look forward to developing similar relationships here.