In light of the recent video put up by John Green, I thought I would try to register for Obamacare myself and keep notes as I went. Below are the results using Win 7, IE 9.
I am testing this system by applying online for myself only with medical and dental, and no special assistance. I was going to record this with Skype, but when I went to set it up using my Facebook account I got this message:
Skype will receive the following info: your public profile, friend list, email address, News Feed, birthday, status updates, checkins, hometown, current city, photos, videos, website and personal description and your friends' birthdays, status updates, checkins, hometowns, current cities, photos, videos, websites and personal descriptions. Skype would like to access your data at any time.
That is pretty invasive. Given the recent revelations about spying by private companies I decided this is not something I want to enable. I decide to decline that and go head in taking notes along the way. As it turns out, registering for healthcare insurance under the ACA is a
lot less invasive than registering for Skype.
____
Here is the running log of activity (all times EDT on Friday, October 18, 2013)
2:06 PM Sign in to Healthcare.gov
Pick state (MD), skim legalese (re: privacy etc) but like always, just accept terms without reading.
Select NAME
Select PASSWORD
Answer a few Questions re Identity (e.g., line of credit, previous employer, etc.)
2:08 Start picking a password.
Identify proofing passed, screwed up PASSWORD (didn't read rules)
The "rules" are not put up as rules, but says stuff like "Password SHOULD contain a capital letter" when it SHOULD say "Password MUST contain a capital letter".
2:13 Finally picked a password they liked (No, I won't share it.)
Off to check email for instructions.
2:16 Back to apply... got lost because I didn't read the email all the way to the bottom where they put the link I should have gone to the first time. In the email they give me my account #, but I don't need that to login. Not sure yet why they gave that to me.
Anyway, have to login 3x for some reason with username/password. Maybe I mistyped.
2:17 IN! Ready to Continue Shopping
2:18 Checking cost of Health Plans
Now they ask some questions: DOB has a slight glitch. You don't see there is a drop down menu until you start entering data in the field. So I have to erase then select from drop down menu. (Month and day) and then I have to erase the year autofilled (current) and put in year of birth.
2:20 READY TO BROWSE PLANS!!!!!!!!
Waiting..... waiting..... waiting.... time passes.....
2:30 Exit out...using back arrow. Screw things up. Get error message (do you want to open findproducts.jsp?) and system seems to crash. I am running Win 7 and have javascript support so I don't bother installing anything.
2:33 Log in again to Maryland Exchange.
2:34 Re-enter basic info (DOB, etc.)
2:35 Ready to Browse!!!
Waiting..... waiting ..... waiting.....
2:50 still waiting....
2:51 Decide to double check the file association to be sure that javascript is not the problem.
Check Security settings and java is enabled.
2:55 Check online to see how to test my browser (IE 9)
3:00 Download Java. Enable.
3:04 Close down browser and restart.
3:05 Restart Browser session at Marylandhealthconnection.gov
3:06 Login
3:08 Ready to Browse Plans (answer DOB, etc. again)
3:09 SUCCESSFULLY IN!!!
MORAL OF THE STORY: MAKE SURE YOU HAVE JAVA ENABLED AND UP TO DATE!
3:10 Answer basic questions, VOILA!
3:12 List of 13 plans with dental ranging from $371 to $898 per month. Note: That is medical AND dental WITHOUT Tax credits (which I would qualify for).
Critique to follow in comments.