Failure To Launch: Obamacare’s No Good, Very Bad First Day
In the field of health care/Medicaid policy, there are few people as learned — or as witty — as Jonathan Ingram. (You might recognize his name: he’s that troublemaker that lost a lot of credibility by mentioning little ole me in a tweet to Speaker of the House Davy Carter.) When he’s not hassling big-government politicians on Twitter, Ingram works as a Medicaid expert with the Foundation for Government Accountability. Yesterday, while exploring the fabulous Obamacare exchanges, Jonathan unfortunately had an experience that was all too common for millions of Americans:
Today marked the first day of open enrollment in ObamaCare’s health insurance exchanges. But you wouldn’t know it if you tried to see what your options were on the exchange’s HealthCare.gov website. I spent the better part of three hours this morning trying to find out what plans were available.
What doctors and hospitals are in each plan’s networks? What kind of deductibles, copays and coinsurance do the plans have? What are the premiums in my area? These are all good questions, the sort anyone signing up would be curious about.
But here’s the problem: the website wouldn’t even let me create an account to look at the options. The problems began almost immediately, when I typed in my state and clicked the “Apply Now” button. That’s where I ran into my first error screen of the day – and certainly not the last.”
I encourage you to read Ingram’s full story at The Federalist. Seems like his experience was quite a, well, train wreck.
For an Arkansas twist: Ingram also tells me he was unable to access the Arkansas exchange which, as I reported yesterday, simply directs you to the federal exchange. Maybe they’re still working on creating a “better consumer experience” and more “efficiency”?
Call Senator Pryor’s office he is waiting by phone.