Comment by sixbit | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sixbit | Hacker News Reader

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Healthcare.gov is the absolute worst. They had a button "End coverage for 2017" I clicked it around the end of November because I chose a non-marketplace plan for 2017, and the end result of that click was Cigna my current marketplace insurer for 2016 received a transmission from them, and interpreted it incorrectly, which made my 2016 plan inactive and retroactively terminated me back to 08/31 despite having paid all my premiums and processed claims up until end of November.

Their escalation process is useless, 30 days to resolve (if I'm that lucky). Will try not to get injured in the meantime.

Glitches and data sync issues are unreal, this is not an isolated incident. Every year it's been something. 2014 I was on Covered California and had to take them to administrative court to resolve data and tax form issues (canceled then due to a move and it completely wiped out my 2014 enrollment). Then in 2015 on HealthCare.gov they had me enrolled in the same plan twice and the insurer wanted double the premiums until they could resolve it.

I had a similar problem with BCBS --- twice, actually, the latter of which cost me most of a year's deductible and almost left us without insurance. My impression is that the problem with the insurers, not with HC.gov.

This. I've actually worked with some large payers and they are just literally not set up organizationally, technically, and systematically to work with individuals or even very small businesses for that matter (less than 5 employees). Furthermore not only are they not setup to help individuals, they can't even figure out whether it's financially viable for them or not.

A big problem with the individual market is that it isn't financially viable to serve the individual market at reasonable prices, because in the US market, not holding a job with adequate health insurance is a huge adverse selection marker.

Startup founders should be a lot more concerned about this than they seem to be. Health insurance almost screwed me at Matasano in 2005; it would have, had Erin not taken a full time job elsewhere until Matasano had group coverage.

My wife (startup founder) is under my insurance (I'm a full time employee that gets $12k per year towards UHC healthcare). Even if she paid the same from her company (~15 employees), her deductible would be double what it is currently. If she went under her own company health insurance, we would have to pay at least an extra ~$2,000 this year out of pocket for various health related services she incurred.

From a macro lens there is definitely a huge disincentive to start a company in this country.

I think a lot of 20-somethings think that they'll have the same access to health insurance they get now when they're in their 30s and starting a family.

Well won't that be a surprise when they see their premiums with a partner and children. I know I was certainly surprised to find I went from paying $300/month for myself to $1300/month for a family.

I think they're going to be a lot more surprised when they let their insurance lapse for a few months and find out that the ACA amendments provide guaranteed issue only if you've had continuous coverage --- without continuous coverage, you can be uninsurable without first working a full-time job for a year.

Not "expensive to insure". Uninsurable, at any cost.

You can skip coverage for up to 3 months a year ("Short Gap" exemption). If you do this at the end of a year, you can get back in Jan 1st of the next year without penalty. You could, depending on risk level, only be insured 9 months each year to save on costs.

https://marketplace.cms.gov/technical-assistance-resources/e...

That's under the current ACA. The most likely repeal/replace bill replaces the individual mandate with a far stricter continuous coverage rule.

Now we see the real test of whether healthcare.gov has reached the level of consumer tech: Does bug-report-via-top-ranked-HN-comment get anything done?

After doing 6 years of government contracting and also interviewing with Nava I get the impression they're a higher grade of government contractor than what you typically work with. The initial failure of Healthcare.gov was no surprise to me (in fact I was surprised they even had a homepage working based on my government contracting experiences) and having Nava come in and fix things in what was likely a pretty horrific codebase is nothing short of impressive.

Having said that there is still a ton of red tape and issues surrounding not just government contracting in general but also around the fact that different states and insurance providers have different systems that all work differently but somehow need to work together under this single application.

So I wouldn't expect much even though the Nava folks, in my short time dealing with them and comparing them to other contractors, seem fairly solid.

AFAICT it's actually a Cigna bug report yeah? Happy to make sure it gets to the right place if I'm wrong.

(/me doesn't work for nava, does work on healthcare.gov)

There is a persistent error message on my 2016 profile on healthcare.gov after that button was clicked (despite it also showing it's active on that side of things). My understanding is that the bug is the integration point between the two. From past issues and what I've been told on this one, is that the only way things get fixed and made right is to have healthcare.gov retransmit the correct data/status. Cigna can't fix it on their own from their side. Thanks for the offer to help, didn't expect any action, just a post out of frustration. I'll shoot you and email.

I'm almost positive you mean "I'll shoot you an email." but the idea of someone being so frustrated with healthcare.gov they want to shoot the messenger (yet still get the problem resolved) is in-line with what I've heard. (and gave me a hearty chuckle)

Haha, just a typo and not a subconscious slip, I swear! :-)

Got it, it sounds like there is some issue on the healthcare.gov side. I work at Nava so feel free to email me as well. I totally understand your frustration, and though it sounds like we don't work on the components of healthcare.gov that are leaving you in the lurch just reach out and we can try and route your issue to the right people.

Thanks so much, most appreciated. I'll take the first offer of help first and if that doesn't work I'll follow up with you.

Both Nava and healthcare.gov people replied, in under an hour. Looks like a win for the OP (or as much of a win it can get in this fucked-up situation).

Fingers crossed!

Just wanted to add that both were a big help and that my insurance is active again. Thanks to everyone who tried to help. I'll have to pay it forward somehow.

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