As an older person with pre-existing health conditions, I was turned down by two companies for health insurance after reaching the end of my COBRA coverage. The only option available to me was ICHIA (Indiana Comprehensive Health Insurance Association) which is the state risk pool insurance. Each year the already-expensive monthly premium increased, and when I hit 60 it skyrocketed. I currently pay $1077 per month for insurance that does not pay a cent toward care (including routine doctor visits) until I have met a high deductible. It does have negotiated contractual fees which are lower than the list prices so helps out in that way. Of course with the advent of the Affordable Care Act, the Indiana legislature voted to discontinue this state-run program as of January 1st. Interesting because they have never provided funds for the program; it is self-sustaining. The state of Indiana decided not to establish a state marketplace for health insurance but threw its citizens into the federal exchange.
I consider myself a fairly savvy internet user. The stories you hear about how dysfunctional healthcare.gov is are true if I judge by my own experience. I signed up for the email news items about a month ahead of the start date. Those items suggested registering on the site with a user name and password to be ready. I was ready, but they were not. I did not try to go online until day 4 thinking the glitches would be fewer and the wait time less. I got the “busy” screen, but I did finally get to the log on. The computer program did not recognize my registered information as valid. I reached a dead end. After several days of trying, I registered under a new user name and password. Again I received the email asking me to validate the information by clicking on the provided link, which I did. Now I had two sets of registration information which either came back with invalid information messages or 404 error messages.
Finally on Friday October 11th, I called the 800 phone number. A very nice lady offered to fill in the application over the phone. We started with the basic name and address information. It was slow going as her computer was sluggish. She then asked if the application was for me only or included others in my household. She apparently entered that information to bring up the correct application form. I heard a sudden exclamation of “Bonkers! My computer is going bonkers!” She had lost the input information, and the way she put it the computer kept going off (blank) and then on with an unrelated screen. She apologized and sounding incredulous said this had never happened to her before. Rather than stay on the phone to see if the problem would clear up, I thanked her for her attempt and said I would try again online the following week and if unsuccessful would phone again.
I will say that the website had improved from October 4th to October 11th. There was no “busy” screen as apparently more server capacity had been added. I did receive an email that had a link to a listing of healthcare plans in one’s county by company and plan level with estimated premium prices before any subsidies. Before, you had no way to “shop” plans to see if you would even want to go thru the trouble of signing up. No deductible levels given, but it was an improvement and an incentive to keep trying once I saw the monthly amounts. I would easily save $4000 to $5000 a year even without subsidies and have much better benefits.
Later in the afternoon after the phone disaster, I got to thinking about the FAQ section I had read. I had cleared browsing history and reset cookies and said I forgot my user name so I could get an email to retry, clicked on the validation link many times only to get an oops message that I had already validated, etc., but I had always used Internet Explorer. I wondered if using Mozilla Firefox would make a difference. My first attempt did not work. I remembered that sometimes blocking mechanisms in Firefox could be made inoperable by holding down the control. I re-entered my user name and password, held control and clicked on the Log In button. Success. Well, success of sorts. A screen appeared with drop-down buttons to view My Profile which I could and to view application which did not work. I looked at the profile and it said ID not validated. There was a little button to validate now. I clicked and nothing happened. With my profile page still open, I went to the email with the link and clicked. Now a list of multiple choice questions for validation appeared. Whether it was because of the email click or it just took a long time to appear, I had moved a step closer. I later read in the Wall Street Journal that these validation questions came from credit reporting bureaus like Experian and that the software to connect the healthcare site with the bureau data was really buggy. I submitted my question answers and on my profile it said “validated”. Then a screen automatically appeared with a way to start filling in the application. I submitted the application and an application number appeared and status said pending. However, it said I would have to receive a message that I was deemed eligible for healthcare thru the exchange before seeing the health plans available to me and actually enrolling.
Saturday I tried to log in to see if the status had changed. Again I got nothing but error messages using Explorer. I accessed my “account” thru Firefox, but the Profile and Application buttons were inoperable. Today the same thing, but when I logged off, there was now a different screen than the basic log in screen; this one said return to your marketplace account with a link. This link took me to what looked like the log in screen, but this screen actually worked and took me to my account. My status had changed from Pending to In Progress.
That is where things stand currently. I still am not enrolled in health insurance, but apparently I am in the pipeline somewhere.
You can see application assistance sites by typing in your zip code. Originally, there were only a handful, the closest 30 miles away, but now there is one in my county. The assisters are at the mercy of the website too; many are advising filling out a paper application and mailing it. I am so grateful that I was finally able to submit online as at least there is some feedback there, and I have an application number to follow up on if I don’t hear back in a week or two. Mailing the application is like throwing something into a black hole.
The process may get easier as they do continually work on the system. My biggest tip is to use a browser other than Internet Explorer.
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