The next two stages we've pretty much crammed into a single made dash between last November and now, with the bargaining at state houses taking place across the country, while depression probably hit the hardest right around the holidays last year.

Now, I think we're finally seeing some real “let's get to work” acceptance. At least that's what I saw in Denver at the Colorado State Association of Health Underwriters' Annual Symposium in June. The first sign? A sold-out event featuring a packed meeting room. Empty seats were harder to find than a Michael Douglas mouthwash.

And the best part? I didn't hear a single complaint all day. Sure, there've been the typical Obama jokes, Congressional barbs and general federal gallows humor, but the mood has clearly shifted. Or maybe it's just a Colorado thing.

One of the presenters, a carrier no less, articulated the broker's lament well.

“Three years ago, it was 'Will I have a job?' Two years ago, it was 'Will my clients still need me?' And now it's, 'How will the exchanges pay me?'”

Call it the inverse Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs: The further we dive into this, the less we worry about job security and the more we worry about where our next paycheck is coming from. Which, come to think of it, when I put it like that, it doesn't sound like we've come that far after all.

During another presentation, and back to the beginning of this blog, someone else mentioned that brokers see next year as the end or the beginning. They're either going out of business or they're gonna get rich. And like everything else, the boring truth lies somewhere in the middle.

Reform presents a world of opportunity for brokers, but that doesn't mean everyone is up for the challenge. We'll no doubt sees scores of brokers bow out of the business rather than try to navigate an increasingly complicated regulatory landscape, but after what I saw at Colorado's meeting—both inside and outside the bar— I'm more encouraged than ever that we've all still got a future together.