Signing up for a policy under ACA is easy. It takes less than an hour and there are no major gliches. Policy comparisons go best calling the GoHealth call center, outside the government system. Here's the waterfall:
1. Open a window and go to the healthcare.gov web site to get the policies you want to compare (10 minutes):
You answer six simple questions:
1) Are you looking for coverage for yourself/family, or your business?
2) Are you looking for health or dental coverage?
3) What state do you live in?
4) What county do you live in?
5) Who will you apply for coverage for (yourself, yourself/spouse/children, yourself/children, only children)
6) How old are you (49 or under; 50 or older)?
2. Use the GoHealth system at 855-487-6969 to find detailed policy comparison information. GoHealth is recommended by Walgreens which also provides information pamphlets at their pharmacies.
3. Use the HealthCare phone system at 800-318-2596 to register your application for the policy you want and get your discount. Discounts are proportional across policies.
Got an hour ????? It's easy to use. I got a dental app done and that went less than a half-hour. Better coverage and a saving of $125 a year.
Worst problem: there's terrible mis-, mal- and disinformation getting posted online -- including here at DKOS. It's in the comments, not any diary text I've seen so far.
We'll get to the bogus/slimy comments vs. what's real. That's below the orange muffin.
There's a good diary up today that covers the main process for ACA signup.
Sign up for health care insurance under the ACA (Obamacare) right now in 2 steps -- from Ubiquitous A
Ubiquitous A published before the pointer to GoHealth (and Walgreens) came to the top. You get better policy comparison info at 855-487-6969 GoHealth. Their reps and their system have been doing that task for years.
And the comments at Ubiquitous A's piece include quite the assortment of crappy It-Don't-Work misdirections and misstatements of fact:
-- Why (isn't) the president... telling people to call up (800-318-2596.) Perhaps they don't have enough live reps?
-- But were the phone reps capable of explaining the details of the different policies? I don't think so.
-- Telling people to call the 1-800 number isn’t any good... (they have) to transmit the enrollment information over the computer system to the insurer anyway.
-- The 34 states that used federal exchanges are arguing that people in those states should not get subsidies.
-- Under the Affordable Care Act, subsidies are only available for state exchanges.
-- [From "e21" at Manhattan Institute] For the moment, the program is at a standstill.
-- [From "e21" at Manhattan Institute] There is no prospect that these enrollment systems will be fixed anytime soon.
-- [From Heritage Foundation] The average family of four will see a premium increase in the exchanges of 10 to 30 percent.
News Corporation, Line of Koch brain poisons, and the usual Powell Memo propaganda mills are lying their tails off. Some of it is simple lies, some of it amounts to reality-twisting hoaxes. They've got their goons going around sowing shxte, so just ignore it.
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Of course the president asked people to use the telephone:
Rose Garden speech
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http://www.youtube.com/...
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And of course the 800-318-2596 call center takes the final policy applications and provides the discount quotes fairly quickly and efficiently.
And of course state exchanges operated by the federal government are legally equivalent to state exchanges operated by the states themselves.
I skipped the GoHealth stop. Instead of using GoHealth I went to the insurance companies for policy information. Maybe that takes a little longer.
Don't worry about getting your discount info early on. It's going to be proportional anyway and the final application stage will give you a quote to the penny.
If you find you can afford a policy with more coverage, you can change to swap up or down all the way to the end. Or call in later and make a change.
This is an easy system to use. There's a lot of information, so comparing general coverage plans takes some time. But the system itself works fine using the telephone. I did dental and it took less than a half-hour. Finding the dental plans, first off, took 5 minutes online.
ObamaCare would be better off if they hadn't built a public web site at all, other than inventorying the coverage policies. They should do all the final applications over the phone.
Still, it's five or ten minutes at healthcare.gov to find the coverage policies you'll consider. Then 855-487-6969 for policy information. Then 800-318-2596 to register.
Then please come back to DailyKos to tell everybody what a genius you are to have knocked it off like a pro !
And brag how much money you're saving. I'm saving $125, so how you doing?
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Thanks for the Recommend tag. We need to see more of these Success Story postings, at least until nobody is surprised that ACA works AOK.
There's a comment in here saying the main web site is working and took less than 45 minutes for a family application yesterday. Hopefully that will be the norm by end of October.
When there's 25,000,000 success stories, I'ma gonna have a party!