Insurance companies are canceling health policies for nearly 250,000 Coloradans, many because of Affordable Care Act rules, a tally likely to inflame consumers upset with controversial reforms.

The Colorado Division of Insurance said policies for 2013 that do not meet new minimum benefits under Obamacare are being canceled. Other cancellations are the result of business decisions by the insurers as part of normal operations.

Kathleen Baker is among those furious at the changes. She said her Kaiser Permanente policy was canceled, and a replacement would cost 17 percent more a month with higher deductibles.

“I would like to know how the president, or anyone in Congress, can say this is better for me,” she said.

Opponents of Obamacare said the high number of cancellations is causing bewilderment and anger among consumers who thought they would be able to keep their plans.

Only 3,408 Coloradans have enrolled in the private insurance plans offered on a new state exchange, the conservative advocacy group Compass Colorado said.

“To have almost a hundred health plan cancellations for every exchange sign-up in Colorado under Obamacare is exponentially worse than even the most extreme skeptic could have predicted,” said Kelly Maher, executive director for Compass Colorado.

Consumer advocates who welcome health reform said it will take time to decipher whether the cancellations represent disaster or simply transition.

Cancellations

Twenty-three health insurance carriers in Colorado canceled policies by Nov. 1, covering 106,083 lives in the individual market and 143,116 in the small-group market, the insurance division said.

The state did not say how many of those were directly related to existing policies’ not meeting new rules under the Affordable Care Act, or were simply business decisions by the carriers. In past years, companies including Aetna have left the Colorado market in personal and small-group health insurance as conditions changed.

The division also did not offer a comparison to the thousands of canceled policies in past years.

There is wide anecdotal variance in consumers’ experience after the cancellations.

Some complain that the new policies they were offered are much more expensive. Others say the insurance companies are giving them no help finding new policies on the exchange, which is another feature of the Affordable Care Act.

Still others have said they found better or as-good policies for acceptable prices, and some are receiving federal subsidies that will reduce their overall cost from 2013 prices.

Kaiser and Anthem cover three-quarters of the policies that have been canceled, the division said. Those companies are offering dozens of new, ACA-compliant policies on the exchange, at various prices.

Many of the canceled customers had bare-bones coverage that would not have helped them in 2013 if they had gotten sick, said Dede de Percin of the Colorado Consumer Health Initiative. Some will find replacement policies through the Medicaid expansion, and others will get more useful policies and subsidies on the exchange, she added.

“Is it a legitimate concern right now? Yes,” de Percin said. What she will be asking a year from now is: “Are most of those people back on policies, are people overall better off, have we reduced the number of uninsured? I believe the answer will be yes.”

“The individual market is a volatile market, and plans come and go all the time,” said Elisabeth Arenales, health care program director of the Colorado Center on Law and Policy. “While it’s true that some people may wind up paying more, many will pay less.”

Michael Booth: 303-954-1686, mbooth@denverpost.com or twitter.com/mboothdp