First, I'm not as angry as others have been around here ... yet ... but my experience with healthcare.gov so far has been a total bust and totally crazy-making. I MUST purchase health insurance through the federal exchange by December 15. I won't give up. I can't. But I should be through the process by now.
I am a 50-something-year-old man with enough preexisting conditions to fill a medical museum. I have been insured through BlueCross/BlueShield of Tennessee at outrageously high prices for the last three years but I've paid it because I would have been broke otherwise. The BC/BS policy was only available to me thanks to Democratic Gov. Phil Bredesen creating a preexisting care program a few years ago (AccessTN). Otherwise I would already be in bankruptcy after my last heart surgery. Now, thanks to the Republican Gov. Haslam, the program under which I am insured is ending December 31 and I must purchase insurance under the exchange in time to be covered by January 1. Gov. Haslam opted out of the ACA (which politically makes sense in TN but morally is utterly contemptible, imho).
I am now married to the national exchange. The fact that the Obama administration, whose organization was totally tech-savvy during the campaign, had four years and $400 MM dollars to get this right and totally blew it, is, in my opinion, inexcusable. This is the President's signature achievement! What the hell went wrong?!? If you would like to hear further whining, read a letter to my Congressman and more details about my healthcare.gov experience, leap over the golden squiggle.
Before the hateful comments start let me share the strongly-worded letter I sent to my Representative in the House today:
John J. Duncan, Jr.
800 Market Street, Suite 110
Knoxville, TN 37902
BY: USPS
RE: Protect and Defend the Constitution of the United States
Congressman:
I have heard many members of Congress claiming to speak for “the American people” in recent days. I am a constituent of yours so I want to make this as plain as I know how to do. I vehemently oppose your cockamamie plan to shut down the United States government and threaten a default by preventing a raise in the debt limit. The fact that my Representative in the House of Representatives is part of the 80 member cabal signing a letter advocating the shutdown of the United States government is a point personal humiliation for me. Tens of thousands of children prevented from attending Head Start and hundreds of thousands of middle class folks left without a paycheck to what end Congressman? To repeal the Affordable Care Act? Seriously?
I am a 57 year old man with many preexisting medical conditions who will be covered, by the grace of Almighty God, by insurance made affordable by the free market under the new medical insurance system. My question for you is this: if you actually succeed in repealing, defunding or delaying “Obamacare,” what exactly is your plan for me? Without medical insurance made available thanks to Gov. Bredesen through AccessTN I will face financial ruin. AccessTN, as expensive as it has been, ends for me on December 31, according to the letter I received today. So what is your plan for me if your ill-conceived plan succeeds?
Please do not waste even more of the American people’s money sending a form letter in reply.
Sincerely,
So with that emotional history I went to healthcare.gov as soon as I could. That was nearly three days ago and I still have not been able to successfully log on. As of tonight has there been one person that has successfully signed up for health insurance through the federal system? I know some of the state-run sites have worked better but I haven't heard of anyone who has navigated through the entire federal process on what is a broken site. The administration has been stalling on announcing numbers registered just quoting numbers for "unique visits." Hell I might account for half of those! If the Republicans hadn't distracted themselves so severely this week by shutting down
THE ENTIRE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT perhaps they could have done a great service to the country by pounding the Obama administration for this unforgivable blunder on its signature legislation until there are better results. For a purely technical, non-political review of healthcare.com see this guy's blog post,
"Healthcare.gov is a Technological Disaster."
Thanks for letting me vent. I know this will have a happy ending, including a 50% decrease in my premiums for better coverage, and I will report back here when it does. In the meantime, "guh!"