I know, I know. I'll have people rolling their eyes at yet another healthcare.gov diary. Especially one that talks about the site's ongoing (but I must say, increasingly less) glitches.
Now, let me take you on the journey I've had for the past two weeks.
I was so excited to finally be able to maybe find some health insurance, having had none for over a year. In that year, I was diagnosed with severe ulcerative colitis (pancolitis) which had me in the hospital around Christmas time last year. The medication that I have to take for this illness (the one most doctors prescribe anyway) is about $800 for a month supply without insurance. I've not been able to pay that with my $12,000 a year pay. So I've gone on the medication they prescribed pre-1980, which has more side effects, but only costs about $30. And still my doctor visits are about $200 a visit. As you can see, I definitely need insurance.
I know I wouldn't get it until January, but I thought if I were to get signed up as soon as possible, I'd feel better about things. I could ask my doctor to postpone my check-up on this illness until January so I wouldn't have to ask my mom if she could pay. (She paid the 3,000 bucks for my emergency colonoscopy last year, and I don't like asking her to pay for all my stuff.)
But there were problems. In the first week, I couldn't even get my log in done. I'd finish it, it'd say it was accepted, and then wouldn't allow me to log on. That was fine for me. I stayed off for about a week. Then, last week, I was able to log on. I could get up to the end of the application. I sign and submit it and... It says "Please Wait" and then nothing happens. I get an email saying I got the subsidy. But that's it. I can't see the marketplace. In fact, every time I sign in it tells me my application is still in process. And it makes me start from the beginning of the application again, despite most of the answers being filled in each time I go through it again. I must have done this 20 times by now, with the same results each time. I telephoned and I did live chat. Neither could help me.
Now I'm willing to wait, but it does bother me. I live in a pretty conservative area of Virginia, and everyone knows I was excited about this rollout, so of course they pick on me about it. I don't lie to these people when they ask me if I've been able to get it to work. I say it's getting better, but no, I haven't gotten it to work completely. And then they go off on the usual Obama stuff. It's quite disheartening. How can I defend a site that I myself haven't gotten to work right? Even the ACA as a whole, people won't accept facts! I've been told that it gives illegals free healthcare, which I shoot down and say isn't true. I even point them to politifact and the likes when they tell me that. They so okay, and then the next week they say the same darn thing! How do you get through to people who won't take facts as facts?
It's just way too much for me. Even my more liberal friends have started bashing the ACA, saying their prices are going to go up. Of course, they live in red states that didn't expand medicaid or do their own exchanges. My state, Virginia, didn't do either one either. I already looked, and get $217 a month in subsidies. Looks like I'll only be paying about $20 a month out-of-pocket for my premiums, which is good for me!
I really don't understand the hatred towards the law as a whole. I can understand dislike of the website, as I can't get it to work right either, sadly. Anyone else have the same problem with the sign & save step that I am having?