A couple of weeks ago, I got a letter from my insurance company to inform me that my health plan will be canceled on my anniversary date. I discussed the letter here.
Part of the lengthy letter included instructions for buying a new plan through the Affordable Care Act exchanges. Today I went to HealthCare.gov to see what I could find.
Like reports from many other people, I had a lot of trouble.
Because I live in Washington, DC, and our government has decided to create the DC Health Link, I was redirected to the state-level Web site.
I clicked on "Browse our Plans" and was asked to create an account. Since I'm not fooling around (I seriously want to buy health insurance), I created an account. I was asked for my demographic information and my Social Security Number, which I entered.
The next page looked like this:
What reference number? Do they mean my SSN? No idea.
I didn't want to stop there, but frankly don't have time today to follow up on a phone call right now. I'll try this later.
I looked around the site for any other way to view information about plans. I found a cost calculator, entered my income and age, and was presented with the following:
This was pretty disappointing, knowing that my current premium is $113. Even more disappointing was the fact that I couldn't see any further information on the plans, like their deductible levels, which I suspect are quite high.
The Affordable Care Act will be unaffordable for many people. As I wrote about here, it will raise the costs of insurance for millions, especially young people.
The Web site is frustrating. But even more frustrating is the broken promise that I could keep the health plan I liked. To add injury to this insult… my premiums will spike.
#ThanksObamaCare.