I've been putting off doing my HealthCare.gov application because my job means I come in contact with a lot of people who have had issues with the site. But, with the first deadline for signups tomorrow and me snowed in, no time like the present.
Perhaps fortune favors the procrastinators, because I experienced no issues. I have insurance through my work, but my wife is not eligible this year, so I chose that I was signing up just for her. I entered my personal information and after answering a few simple questions (and a couple trick questions that might trip up an impostor) my identity was verified. From there, I moved on to the application.
This was the easiest application I've ever encountered. If you've ever purchased a car, or a house, or a gym membership, think of how long the paperwork took. Then think of how long it took to sign up for DailyKos. The HealthCare.gov application is closer to the latter. I received the account created email at 8:58 this morning, and my eligibility results at 9:10. Seriously, that easy.
Follow me past the squiggly thing for the results:
Turns out we're eligible for an $85 tax credit and cost-sharing. That means my wife with her pre-existing conditions is eligible for a plan that covers all her doctors and all her medications and no deductible for $168.
I mean, that's not exactly cheap, but it's an amount that we can come up with, and significantly cheaper than medical bills would be.
People like me are going to be a problem for Republicans going forward. Every time they open their mouths and say they want to repeal ObamaCare, they're saying "That really pleasant experience you had with a smoothly operating HealthCare.gov that got your wife much-needed health insurance for a price you can afford? We're upset about that, and we want to take it away."
So, call to action time: If you don't have health insurance, you have until tomorrow, Monday the 23rd at midnight to complete your application and choose a plan for a policy that begins on January 1. After that, open enrollment remains open until March 31, but you need to sign up before the 15th of the month to have it go into effect the following month. So if you sign up on Christmas, your insurance starts February 1.
And tell your stories. Like I said, took me 10 minutes to get affordable coverage for my wife. That was time well spent, and the web site worked like a dream. If you had this kind of luck with HealthCare.gov, write your local paper, call in to talk radio, whatever you can to get people to sign up.