Very long and detailed
article written by homosexual Politico hack about the horrible experience that he and his "husband" encountered trying (unsuccessfully) to acquire health coverage via their hero's infamous website. For some reason it didn't make it into The Politico, though, and ended up in The Daily Caller. Go figure.
As we hoisted champagne flutes in the first seconds of 2014, my partner and I toasted all the usual things people do as they look ahead to the coming year. Health. Happiness. Love. Optimism. Hope.
To that traditional list, we added one more: Obamacare. My husband, Miles, was enrolled in what appeared to be an excellent, affordable plan at the stroke of midnight. Celebration seemed in order.
It had been a tough slog, of course. We’d worried the GOP would succeed in defunding it or undermining it in some other way that would put affordable coverage further out of our reach. Then we’d wrestled with that horrific website, struggled to understand the choices before us and waited nervously after we did so to see if the insurance card would actually materialize. It did.
On Jan. 1, we rejoiced. And on Jan. 10, we gave up.
Ten days in, we decided to cancel Miles’ Obamacare plan, swallow hundreds of dollars we’ll probably never recover and buy him a private policy away from the Federal Health Insurance Exchange Marketplace. His new plan does benefit from many requirements of the Affordable Care Act as well, so that’s good.
But even the administrators at Obamacare’s headquarters have agreed this is the best option. Really.
That’s not how it was supposed to be. After dozens of hours of phone calls that displaced my usual work obligations this week, only one thing is clear: Nobody can give anybody a straight or consistent answer to anything.
Our troubles may strike some as trivial and particular, although they wouldn’t if it happened to them. And anyone who wants a successful system – as we do – must understand that these nightmares are happening across the nation to the very people who want Obamacare to work.
Oh, the hope! Oh, the promise! Oh, the unmitigated BS!
The Phone Person lied. They lie a lot. And this would become very important later.
Three days into 2014, Miles took his Obamacare out for its maiden drive. His stop at the doctor went fine. At the pharmacy, it crashed.
His medication — which has cost us a co-pay of between $10 and $30 under every other plan he’s had since 2004 including one under Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan — would not be covered. At all.
That’s $438 out of pocket. Every month. And it won’t even go against the plan deductible.
In other words, this nifty $246 Obamacare plan would actually cost $686 a month.
I'm tearing up at this point. Really, I am. Okay, well, no...not really.
Now comes the part where I get to have one of those, "See, I told you so..." laugh out loud moments...
Much more troubling than the fact that we received so much worthless and conflicting information was that there was nobody to appeal to, nobody to trust.
Aetna had plans on the federal marketplace as well, so I returned to HealthCare.gov to seek out a different plan for Miles. The site, however, incorrectly — surprise! — believed Miles hadn’t yet enrolled in the plan he was in.
Thus, I found myself back on the line with an Obamcare Phone Person. This time, however, I was told that once someone is enrolled in a plan via the marketplace, they cannot change it until the next open enrollment period in November. The only time to change plans, I learned, was before we paid the first premium.
So...basically...they are screwed. Now, you and I knew that they were screwed from the moment this monstrosity was made into law but it is at this point in the drama that they realize it. Schadenfreude, baby...yeah.
The material they sent was clearly cut-and-pasted off HealthCare.gov – an explanation of why we couldn’t change our plans and how we should have known that this common medication would not be covered in our plan. There was a line in there about a three-day appeals process when a medication is denied; this was the first time in countless phone calls or emails that anyone even suggested there was such a process. Shouldn’t that have been the first thing the Obamacare Phone People said?
It's okay to laugh.
Our math had changed. Initially we hoped to get Miles a plan for less than the $421 cost of his COBRA. Now Miles was stuck in an Obamacare plan for $246 plus $438 out of pocket for his medications. Anything less than $690 a month was now a bargain.
So, they get to pay more for the privilege of paying more...and getting less. In other words, this is the same experience everyone else is having. Of course, it still hasn't sunk in yet that there isn't anything unusual about their personal experience. They think that it's a fluke, that everyone else is getting kickass coverage for pennies.
And to, once again, validate the law of, "you can't fix stupid..."
Come November, we’ll check back and see what Obamacare plans are available for 2015. We want the ACA to work; the previous status quo certainly did not.
