My spouse started her attempt to replace a sub-standard health insurance policy 70 days ago. She is and was a huge supporter of the ACA compromise legislation as also am/was I. We were both big supporters of single payer, still are, but understand political compromise.
The attempt continues, one week short of the original deadline faced back on October 1, without success. Now, with the extended individual deadline, she’s two weeks away from the last chance for the Holy Grail by Oct. 23 to be insured starting in 2014.The quest has been amazing.
Here are the basic steps taken by my very tech competent spouse. Many, many attempts in the first month to get on the ACA site only to be blockaded by error messages and appeals to try again later.
In November, in addition to trying to get on the site, she added calls to the #800 to her arsenal. Initial round resulted in neither useful nor correct information. I guess she was dealing with newly trained call center people. Example: conflicting info on what exact criterion for income…hers, ours, gross, adjusted, etc. to know qualifications for a subsidy.
Then I resorted to calling/emailing the Delaware Insurance Commission for help. The only help I got in her behalf was a call back from an Insurance Company guy. Hmmm? When the question at that point came to subsidies, he apparently lost interest and didn’t return calls. So, more web site attempts and more #800 calls.
She was elated then by mid-month or so be actually be able to print out an application and snail mail it to the prescribed address. Still no response back. So, finally, close to mid November she got walked through the #800 process, got a rough idea of subsidy, cost and was able to zero in on preferred plan options (only two company choices here in Delaware), which is OK, one non-profit and one profit. Anyway, more calls and more updates by phone that her phone application was not yet approved. The paperwork apparently wound up in some dead letter file.
Eureka, last week, on December 3 she was finally told by the #800 call center that the process was complete and while on the line several attempts were made to forward her paperwork to the selected insurance company. After a long hold on the phone, she was told they thought it “went through” and to give the process three our four days and if she didn’t get a call from the insurance company, call the call center back.
So, here we are on December 9, no call from the insurance company so, she’s going back with the call center today. Wish us luck !
The good news is, if she actually gets the chosen policy by the deadline, her premium will be half what she is paying for the substandard policy. For that we are both very grateful. For the frustration and hassle to get to this point, not so much.