Shop til you Drop at the Healthcare Marketplace Part 2: Frustration!

By on November 26, 2013

Last week I began to share my experience with finding new health insurance under the new Affordable Health Care Act. You can read part one here.

As I eagerly awaited for October 1, the date when the brand new Healthcare.gov website was to launch, I had high expectations. I was not satisfied with my current plan and hoped to find insurance with more expansive benefits at a lower monthly cost – or at least a lower deductible.

healthcare

October 1 arrived, and the first free moment I had I tried to access healthcare.gov. You already know how this turned out. Like millions of other anxious American’s I was denied access. The site did not function. I wasted so much time attempting to create an account, only to receive error messages – or worse, nothing at all.

When news broke that this problem was happening nationwide, I calmly decided to try back in a week or soon. In the meantime I shopped around the internet for other options. I created multiple accounts on various Insurance websites and received very little information. Sure, they listed the monthly cost and a brief description – but nothing that offered much details or verbage beyond a line or two. I would have to call, wait on hold, and speak to an agent. I decided to hold off until I could access the healthcare.gov website. From what I heard – that would be my best option.

By the second week of October, I had yet to receive any information from my current plan, Coventry, Health America.  I had no idea if my current plan was going to change – or what I had to do come January 1.  When I finally received a letter in mid October, it didn’t offer much solace. It merely said that once my current plan expired in April of 2014 I’d have to change plans as my former plan will no longer be offered. The 4 line letter ended with Health America promising to send me plan offerings soon. I have yet to receive any other information from them…

With so very little to go on I created a “market place account” with Health America. Which seemed silly, since I’m already a loyal customer. Much like the healthcare.gov site, whenever I tried to view details and pricing for 2014 plans I received an error code telling me to try again soon. I tried and tried again, wasting more time and receiving the same error each time.

Frustrated Woman at Computer With Stack of PaperI finally called customer service and they explained that I can’t access 2014 plans because they are not yet finalized. Well, wouldn’t that be something nice to list on your website. Why have an option to explore 2014 plans when none exist yet? I’m sure you can sense my frustration now. I hate wasting time on things that should be easy.

I tried the joke of Healthcare.gov once more and once again failed. It felt like this whole insurance fiasco was laughing in my face. How could something that all US citizens are required to have be so hard to obtain? I’m a planner – yes, Janaury 1, 2014 was till over 2 months away, but why would the government and media tirelessly place this in front of us, only to make it into a wild goose chase?  Was this their plan? The wear us down to the point where we didn’t’ care what quality of insurance we received, just as long as we received something?

I needed to take a break from the whole ordeal…

 

About Katie Walsh MacDonald

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