In yesterday's episode, which ended in late October, we left Barbara assuming (assuming - we all know what that means, don't we?) that she had plenty of time to arrange for healthcare.Let's resume with Part 2 of the story in November...
Mid November: I decided to get back online to select a plan. They were all ridiculously expensive. Premiums three times higher than what I had been paying. Higher deductibles and copays - whose idea of "affordable" was this? I was very disappointed because the policy I had was a provision of the ACA, so I didn't think it would be that much of a stretch for the new plans offered in the marketplace to offer similar coverage at similar prices. Wrong again. I read the information on subsidies, hoping for a price reduction.
Based on the published information, I thought I might qualify, but it would be borderline. I decided to give it a try. All I had to lose was a little of my time. I had to enter information my husband and on places where we both work. In addition to the standard "How much do you make?", they wanted to know things like the employer tax identification number and telephone number for each employer. You would think this wouldn't be a problem. On the company that my husband and I own, it was easy. But I do some freelance quality assurance and editorial work. It's typically all for the same company but it certainly can't be considered steady work. I do one or two projects a year and typically make between $1200 and $2000 per year. I can pull the tax id number off my W-2, but what to do about the phone number? My contact there has absolutely nothing to do with HR and I did not wish to give out her phone number. A web search for a phone number was fruitless. Who knows how people call them?
Again, I contacted the online chat folks. And again, they advised me to call the customer service number. Unfortunately, the folks there were not able to advise me what to do. Apparently you must enter a phone number. I decided that since I'd not had any work from that company since spring it would just be easier for me to delete that job and not accept any more work from them. I tried deleting the job. But the system still wanted the details on the tax id and the phone number. I logged out and logged back in - more than once. Still, the system continued to insist that I enter the details on the tax id and the phone number for the job I'd deleted. This time I decided to skip the chat people - all they do is advise you to call customer service. I went straight to customer service. The young lady told me that my "delete" hadn't worked. But she assured me that it would work for her. She deleted that job and advised me to log out and log back in, which I did. But there it was - still insisting that I enter information for an employer that "no longer existed". So the young lady did what any good help desk employee does - she advised me to try again in a day or two. Fine, I wasn't going to finish it that night.
Late November: With Thanksgiving out of the way, I decided to try again. Surely the system had been refreshed or purged or whatever it is they do to remove erroneous data. But NO! The system STILL wanted to know the tax id and phone number for the job I'd deleted. So I entered it. As much as I didn't want to put Lisa's phone number in, I had to. I was up against a government system. What choice did I have? Then the system informed me that I did not qualify for any subsidies and proceeded to the options that were available to me. Unfortunately, they were unchanged. Even the bronze plans were going to triple my premiums and deliver higher deductibles and copays. I clicked the compare button. But I couldn't for the life of me figure out what any of the plans actually covered. The costs were pretty clear - the coverages were not. I logged out without making a selection.
I just felt a bit overwhelmed by the lack of information and angry about the prices. Nothing I could do about the prices, but I was certain that I could find out what each of those policies covered. That information was out there on the web somewhere - just waiting for me to find it. After all, I still had a couple of weeks before the deadline...
Stay tuned for Part 3. Will Barbara find out what the policies cover? Will she get her coverage in place by the December 13th deadline?
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