My journey to “affordable”insurance continues. After giving HHS the benefit of the doubt that these
“glitches” were going to be fixed, I decided to return to www.healthcare.gov and continue the process
of signing up. After getting back into the system (6 failed attempts first) I
clicked on ENROLL and...error message!
So, I called the 800 number and
got a very friendly voice named Mackenzie. Mackenzie was very helpful. She told
me that there are these things called “glitches” that keep happening because
too many people are getting on the site. She said: “2.5 people are on it at a
time and the site keeps having problems.” Of course I asked her what types of
problems to which she promptly replied “It’s not recognizing passwords, email
addresses, usernames, and stuff like that.”
At that point I kindly told her
thanks and asked one last question – How bad do you hate your job right now?
The response sums up the whole marketplace experience.
“Oh, it’s okay. I really wish
we could help somebody. The problem with calling us to
help enroll is that we are looking at the same system you are. When you can’t
log in neither can we. I like that you have been nice. Many callers are angry,
yelling profanity at me.” I said, it’s
not your fault. Did you share with them that people can’t start coverage until
January 1st? Her reply: “No, no, you can start insurance
coverage on November 1st as long as we have your application done by
October 15th. If it is after the 15th then you don’t get
insurance until the following month. You know, December.”
Yep, that's our hard earned tax money giving wrong information again.