If you like it, you can('t) keep it

Healthcare economist Robert Book has a very personal tale of ObamaTax woe:

"I am self-employed, and I have several significant pre-existing conditions ... who was supposed to be able to get insurance under the new system."

Turns out - surprise! - that he was lied to. That is, he relied on the word of ObamaTax proponents, including that of the President himself, that he could simply go to the 404Care.gov site, punch a few buttons, and be enrolled.

I heartily recommend reading the whole thing, but the takeaway is breathtakingly simple, and alarming:

"A few days later I got a letter from “The Marketplace” ... congratulating me for selecting a plan, and reminding to to pay my premium as soon as I got a bill from the insurance company."

Problem is, he never received the bill, because his newly-chosen insurer never received notice that he had, in fact, signed up. In theory, HHS sends a notice (ANSI 834 form) to, say, Anthem that Bob Smith has chosen them as his carrier, and needs to add him to their records, send out a bill and an ID card, etc. What seems to be happening is that this last, crucial step is either delayed or, in many cases, not happening at all.

So you have any number of folks who think they've signed up for insurance who really haven't. And since this is the gummint, good luck holding those (ir)responsible to account.

Just another broken promise, apparently.

Here We Go Again

Minnesota health insurer PreferredOne bails on the Obamacare individual health insurance plan market

leaving 30,000 people in a lurch.

The Minnesota health plan offered some of the lowest premiums in the country and captured 60 percent of the state's roughly 55,000 new Obamacare enrollees. But those premiums were too low, it turns out, to cover the medical care and other expenses of all those new customers. In the fall, PreferredOne steeply hiked rates for 2015 and dropped out of Minnesota's Affordable Care Act marketplace entirely, saying it was “not sustainable" to continue.  - Business Week

The problem?

They didn't charge enough.

See a pattern here?

And More 404Care.gov Tricks

And the hits, they just keep on coming. From email:

[click to embiggen]

Warm, fuzzy.

The more things change...

The more they stay the same. From email today:

[click to embiggen]

Hallowed Halls of Harvard: Grubered!

Too funny:

"Members of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the heart of the 378-year-old university, voted overwhelmingly in November to oppose changes that would require them and thousands of other Harvard employees to pay more for health care ... vote came too late to stop the cost increases from taking effect"

Couldn't have happened to a more deserving bunch.

[Hat Tip: Ace of Spades]

UPDATE: From FoIB Robert G:

More Unintentional Medical Tourism

This past November, we discussed the (poorly reported) story of a Canadian woman who, while on vacay in The Aloha State, gave birth (prematurely) and was "stuck" with a rather large bill.

A million dollar one, in fact.

Well, turns out that a British couple has just joined their exclusive little club:

"Brits Katie Amos and fiance Lee Johnston didn't expect to become a family of three until 2015, but at just 29 weeks pregnant, Amos went into labor—while walking through Central Park during "a last getaway" to the Big Apple."

And once again a nationalized health care scheme - the MVNHS©, this time - has failed to live up to its promise:

"Dax's medical bills are expected to total $200,000 before their stay is up. While insurers reportedly cleared Amos to fly, "we aren't sure if our insurance covers the medical bill."

Sounds familiar, no?

And, once again, the couple had apparently purchased a travel medical policy which is unlikely to cover any of the expenses, seeing as how, at 29 weeks, Ms Amos most definitely had a pre-existing condition.

A number of questions arise:

First, if the MVNHS© plan is so good, why would one need supplemental coverage (as if IB readers didn't already know)?

Second, why doesn't the media bother to explore and/or explain how travel medical plans work, and especially why said pre-existing conditions are excluded?

Third, why don't people read their policies, especially considering that the couple in question would be traveling halfway around the world, to a foreign country, while pregnant? Wouldn't this be cause for at least some concern?

The good news is that Dax seems to be doing well (all things considered). And since will be "registered as an American citizen," one presumes that he is eligible for an ObamaPlan that should cover at least some of his expenses.

But that's another post, and perhaps an interesting one, at that.

Put on a Happy Face

Late last summer, we reported that the Oregon health insurance Exchange (HIX) had enrolled exactly 0.0 suckers citizens. This past fall, we learned that, based on this underwhelming performance, Beaver State honchos were "pulling the plug on the site and switching over to the federal exchange and [404Care].gov," but exactly how and when that would happen was anyone's guess.

But that was then, and this is now:

"Oregon officials are pledging to avoid 2014’s enrollment nightmare ... Deloitte Consulting was hired ... to help transition the initially conceived state-run exchange to [404Care].gov"

Apparently something went right, because just north of 400,000 Oregonians managed to sign up in the last quarter or so. This despite the myriad problems still facing the fledgeling effort:

"[T]he new arrangement may still create “some potential disconnects” and confuse consumers with three different websites."

Gee, ya think?