Being on ssid has brought my healthcare to MAJOR BS and I did better before being on it, REPUBLICANS ARE CHEAP BUTTHOLES

Trying to deal with Obamacare directly as a prospective consumer has been just the swamp I thought it would be. Calling the 800 number was ridiculous. Today on several calls, a recording said to select the reason for my call, but the options were unaudible. Several of the personnel were ridiculous. All of them were uninformed on the thing I wanted help with. When I asked the smartest representative who to talk to for accommodations for handicapped applicants, she had nothing. I asked who there handled that. No one. Illegal. Are we to trust these people with our healthcare?

For each of five calls, the call just cut off after 5 or 10 minutes of talking to the representative. Once after that happened, I heard some kind of recording. Then a man spoke to me in Spanish.

If you buy Blue Cross through Obamacare do medical providers know it and not like you? Blue Cross in my area said they would not be able to distinguish it from other plans, but I wonder. According to several sources, in some other places, they sometimes know. It's a concern. I tried to get the point of view of practicing doctors where I live but failed.

The ridiculousness of Obamacare is exposed in how they handle hardship & affordability exemptions. For people over 30 to enroll in a high deductible plan they have to prove they have particular hardships or that available plans are unaffordable to them. Can you do this process online? No, YET you have to have internet access, an Apple Computer or Windows-Based Computer, the new version of Abobe, and a printer. You download the forms, but they only download through the above technology. No Androids. Probably no phones. There are many ways to get forms to people, but they chose this elitist, inconvenient method.

Once downloaded onto your Apple computer, etc., you are only supposed to fill the forms out online. The Affordability Exemption Form is made not to print if you don't fill it out first. Then you print it out. The online form was in color. Do you have to a color printer to print it out in color? That doesn't seem impossible. The form doesn't say. An extra hitch/cost for this benevolent social welfare program.

I did not have the relevant technology and have mobility issues due to disability. I tried to get the forms sent to me thinking I could fill them out on paper. I called the Obamacare 800 number, my Congress Person's office, an Obamacare broker and Healthcare Sherpa. There was no way to do that.

After you print out the nine page form, you are supposed to attach documentation and mail everything to Kentucky, where it may take a month to process. Why couldn't you do all this online?

Looking for healthcare has been maddening and distracting, just when I needed to focus another important issue. Obamacare was the biggest part of that, both directly and in its impact on other programs. Just when I thought I would get coverage, all this nonsense made it seem like a giant swamp designed to mess with you.

Obamacare's effect on other insurances: Apparently the Affordable Care Act may have disappeared some private high deductible policies. It made many people's existing coverage unaffordable or unworkable. It appeared to make Blue Cross flakier. As a prospective customer, I found Blue Cross to be suprisingly dysfunctional. Online complaints about them where I live were worse than expected. An employer told me that after Obamacare, healthcare premiums for each employee went up about $60.

Still want to print out the above forms and fill them out on paper? Don't have the required technology to access the forms?

I'm not sure if the gov't accepts the Hardship and Affordability Exemption Forms for catastrophic coverage if you fill them out with a pen, but I found the Hardship form in a form most people could see and download.

Search for:
Hardship_exemption_form. Pdf - Health Net Healthnet.com

Click on form to download

Or search for:

healthnet.com
› static › broker › unprotected › pdfs › national › hardship_exemption_form. Pdf

Although I could not see it, I was able to save the Affordability Exemption Form from the Obamacare website as a Word document. Then I could see it. It was off kilter. I also personally found it too difficult to fill it out within Word.

Want to Contact The People Who Run Obamacare?

Obamacare is under the federal Department of Health and Human Services headed by Secretary Xavier Becerra

https://www.hhs.gov/about/leadership/xavier-becerra.html

Didn't run across any of his contact info but his office would likely be in Washington DC or Maryland.

Within the HHS, Obamacare is under the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, headed by:

Chiquita Brooks-LaSure
Administrator
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid

CMS' address on their website is:
7500 Security Boulevard, Baltimore, MD *******

Wikipedia says CMS headquarters are in Woodlawn in Baltimore County, Maryland.

Or post your concerns on their social media, if they have it.

I'm adding keywords here to help people find this:
Catastrophic Coverage or High Deductible Policy For People Over 30
Affordability Exemption Form
Hardship Exemption Form
No Disability Access
No Economic Access
No Inclusivity

I think this type of organisation ae less in number so it must expand its reachablity

Is there a way to give zero stars?

My husband and I enrolled in Jan. 15. I was excited, we had a good plan and good rate and felt happy with our choice. It has been a total nightmare. We've been kicked off the plan several times due to administrative errors totally and entirely on the part of healthcare.gov (e.g., they claimed 3 months into approving us for coverage that I was not a US citizen? Why in the world would they approve us without this info? They had my social security number. And they are the government? Easy check?).

We've also had erratic billing, which constantly made us wonder month to month if we even HAD coverage? Then they would pull it together after several phone calls and bill us all in one shot for the past 3 months, etc. In the meantime we put off appointments/meds because when we didn't pay a premium, it seemed logical that if we had services rendered, it would be rejected. Having to 'back pay' left us feeling very vulnerable to this.

When we received notifications that we'd be bumped from the plan for my "not being a citizen", I called the marketplace the same day and spoke to Charles, a rep who said it was their fault they didn't get this info from me before signing me up and requested I send a copy of my driver's license, which I did the same day. We continue to be told (to this day, I might add) that they are missing my citizenship info. Through summer and fall 2015 I would continue to call for these billing issues, and was told a different story every time. I logged all names, dates and info I was told, would speak to someone different every time who would give me erroneous information, and the next rep who I would speak to about it would not care, then tell me their OWN story of what was going on... no accountability at all.

Dec 2015 I thought I better call to be sure we were carried over to 2016 automatically (I had emails saying we were... but have grown to mistrust, at this point.) I spoke to a woman LaToya on 12.9 who told me if I didn't update our paperwork, we would have a gap in coverage (that is, no coverage for January) but it would resume in Feb. WHAT? I repeated this back to her to be sure I had it right and told her it sounded absolutely ridiculous, but she insisted that was how it worked.

Sure enough our premium was not deducted at the end of Dec for January, which did follow suit with with LaToya told me, but I was still uneasy... Frankly I'm burned out from calling these people, so I let it go, End of Jan. I noticed our premium did not come out again, so I was forced to call, on 1.22 and spoke to Cayden who was kind and said what Latoya told me was entirely wrong and our insurance SHOULD have continued but we fell through the cracks. He even said 'I'm sorry to say this happens more often than I want to admit." He put in an escalation to get it back on track for Feb. 1st(I told him did not want to pay for January coverage at this point, I was told we would be without coverage and we planned accordingly, and also our premiums have not been taken out. He thought we would have to start up 1/1 but he would try to start it for 2/1. Got a call from Harvard pilgrim 1/25 that they heard about my 'complaint' that we were kicked off and wanted a 2.1 start date but they had rec'd no paperwork from healthcare.gov and "strongly urged" me to call the marketplace to make sure paperwork was in order.

Called Marketplace to do just that on 1/27 and asked to speak to a manager! The manager (last name jones, do not have first name) was a robot, reading off a script. I poured all of this out to her and she insisted that we'd had coverage all along, there was no gap and everything is on track, it's now in HPs hands! I told her 1.) We have had no premiums taken out since the end of November, so this is entirely false, and 2.) I was told by HP directly that we will be getting a termination letter soon because they have not received anything from the marketplace to reinstate us.

She could not have cared any less. I asked her if would she mind calling HP directly at this point because this has become absurd. She refused (she told me marketplace cannot make outbound calls) and I got nowhere once again. I called HP and explained the situation told her we are in a holding pattern, and would she call the marketplace to bridge this gap, because both claim the other one owes them info to move forward. She also refused. We are now stuck.

Asked my husband to call yesterday to just simply cancel us from the marketplace, because I am fried. At this point I'd be glad to not carry insurance, it's too much work. But we will be penalized for that, So he called the marketplace and spoke to someone about a new plan, with no mention of our HP plan being "stuck" in limbo. This whole experience reminds me of the movie "Groundhog Day"... I want to be rid of the marketplace completely, because, honestly, I can feel the stress of my health insurance taking a toll on my health. But my husband is trying to make it work, mostly because he hasn't experienced this runaround like I have. ***By the way, I should note, I am still being asked for proof of citizenship whenever I call, and it's been almost a year!

I am pretty sure ultimately we will be working with an insurance provide outside of the marketplace, once my husband figures this all out for himself and reaches my level of frustration, but for now he's steering this ship. I am done.

Bottom line: the marketplace is one royally screwed up mess.

PS A ONE STAR RATING IS TOO MANY STARS

SOME REPS HAVE BEEN POLITE AND SEEMINGLY KNOWLEDGEABLE BUT GOOD LUCK TALKING TO THE SAME PERSON TWICE. THERE IS NO ACCOUNTABILITY, EVEN WITH MANAGERS!

UPDATE: It is now August 2016, we have since signed up with Minuteman Health. I have yet to use this insurance yet, but we've had no administrative issues at all... what a relief. We pay it every month and they log it as paid. Nice and easy. Just not having to call every month to correct errors is a huge improvement. I will update once I use the insurance to let you know if it actually covers us! Interestingly, we get paper bills and email reminders that we haven't paid our bill from Harvard Pilgrim. (We haven't been on this plan for at least 8 months?)

I have emailed back a number of times (the 7th or 8th time was with ANGER!) asking them to unsubscribe us. We are not members anymore. They don't have a way to "unsubscribe" to online bills, but I'm able to reply, so the last email I sent to them reads as follows:

PLEASE STOP SENDING THESE MESSAGES! THERE IS NO WAY TO UNSUBSCRIBE TO THESE AND WE HAVE NOT CARRIED THIS INSURANCE SINCE 2015 BECAUSE IT WAS SO SCREWED UP. WE HAD ISSUES WITH AUTOMATIC BILLING AND EVEN GOT KICKED OFF OF THE PLAN SEVERAL TIMES DUE TO CLERICAL ERRORS. IT WAS TOO ERRATIC SO WE CANCELLED. WE ALSO CONTINUE TO GET SNAIL MAIL BILLS!

PLEASE STOP SENDING THESE BILLS!

I sent it to: *******@hphc.org

I might be able to upgrade my star rating if Minuteman Health checks out. My husband has used it for his prescription and so far, so good... fingers crossed!

And depending where you live, the healthcare plan costs varies drastically. Upon examining the healthcare plans, you'll eventually realize you need to move to a poor, rural area somewhere in order to reap the least expensive, crap insurance policy with subsidies most of us don't receive but pay for the less fortunate. The problem is I can't afford insurance for my younger, not-working wife. I'm semi-retired and have Medicare. So I'm having difficulties affording to pay insurance for the less fortunate. Oh remember, "And if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor?," ya right. Where I live many doctors hate Obamacare and refuse to accept Obamacare policy holders... the docs only take cash... pretty amazing considering I live in the bastion of Liberalville, USA. Yes, I haven't found a liberal doctor that likes Obamacare; they consider it a disaster... imagine that! Of course, Obamacare maximizes healthcare money received from US citizens while minimize money given back to the medical professionals for their services... and the paperwork is a nightmare. Fortunately for the doctors, they are not required to accept Obamacare policy holders... lucky them. I financially support our own healthcare needs, applying my own self-insured plan, as I like to call it. Being semi-retired and wife not working we don't have the money to throw away for the biggest government scam and intrusion into my life that I've ever witnessed. We're doing fine and it feels good not to get ripped off by the government!

If you're single and young as I was once, consider no insurance. I didn't pay for insurance when I wasn't working because I felt my good gene pool was in my favor... an engineer's perspective of looking at the statistical odds of requiring medical aid during my lifetime. If you're healthy, why waste money. Especially if you have good, young genes, consider opting out of medical insurance altogether. I once cut my fingers on a wood shaper and went to Los Angeles County General Hospital back in the late 1970's... my only hospital visit ever. LA County General did a great job of sewing up my fingers, stayed there overnight in the Trauma Ward with guys with knife and bullet wounds. And LA County General never sent me a bill for the medical care! Now that was what I call healthcare! Don't you ever wonder for all the tens of millions of dollars the government has spent on a healthcare website that the money could have paid off a ton of healthcare costs. If the government simply cut its own labor force "fat," there could be free healthcare system.

An interesting example of regional costs is comparing the town where my wife was born and where we now live. Living in my wife's "Boonville" town in PA, we'd only pay no-subsidy cost of $380/month for the Silver Plan. Where we now live we'd pay a no-subsidy cost of $695/month for the Silver Plan. This data is taken from the Kaiser Family Foundation healthcare calculator; you can learn a lot playing around with the calculator. In other words, you can learn how you're being "screwed" by the government. See http://kff.org/interactive/subsidy-calculator/. The cool thing: even when living in my wife's Boonville town is that you could have an income into the millions, and you still pay the same, $380/month payment (of course, no subsidies). It's very important where you live when attempting to reduce your healthcare costs.

So the current healthcare plan sends a message that you should move away from a high income town and settle into a lower income neighborhood to receive a reduced healthcare plan coverage. Gee, this sounds like another version of the government attempting to move the poor into wealthy neighborhoods! In other words, if you can't move the poor into the wealthy neighborhoods, then move the wealthy into the poor neighborhoods; not an uncommon scenario. This might work for high-end neighborhood dwellers if you're currently property-rich and cash-poor.

The Silver Plan only pays 70% of total expenses... and so the "insured" pays for the rest! So with or without Obamacare, you can still be wading at least waist high in the brown stuff... it's just a matter of the level of the brown stuff when incurring major medical costs. Before Obamacare we had a good $400/month insurance plan... and now, well, it's unaffordable and a very poor policy. As usual, when the government tries to compete with industry, the government once again proves incompetent.

The general public has been "sold" on the false need to have insurance. After paying of my mortgage, I've saved about $1,000 per year on property insurance. After paying over $30K in mandatory property insurance for the house loan, I never made an insurance claim. I'll never purchase property insurance again. Over my 70-year lifetime, I've never had an operation; always had good health. And I'll never pay for health insurance again. For most people, it's a waste of money.

A recent 2016 calculation using the Kaiser Family healthcare calculator, Silver Plan insurance for a family of four (two adults and two kids) with a $100K annual family income living in my area would cost over $16K per year. What family of four has that much expendable income to pay for an essentially valueless health insurance plan? I'm assuming the age old payment priorities are the monthly rental payments or house mortgage payments, utilities, food, gas for the car, etc. The ultra-high cost of health insurance is insane, IMO. Don't be suckered by our corrupt and incompetent government. The government wants to make you poor.

CLUSTER F*CK