Still More Obamacare

Here's  the nickle tour: I started trying to get O'Care months ago. After dozens of phone calls, numerous attempts via the website and hours on the phone, I got it for me and Quilter Girl. And, the powers that be declared us poor and eligible for Medicaid. Forty-six bucks a month for health and dental. No deductibles, no copays, ain't life grand? Then we got cancelled... without our knowledge.

I tried, I really did. I called the number on the back of my card. It asked for one for English. 1. It asked for my member number. ******.No,try again. ****** No, you've tried too many times and it HUNG UP ON ME! I attempted it three more times with the same anger-generating results. Rather than throw my phone across the room (it didn't do anything wrong), I got on the Nevada health care website, found and tried another number. Couldn't get through. Grr! I decided to do the 'contact u's on the website. I entered my username. Looked up my password in my password safe deposit box, and it informed me that my password expired. Get a new one. I entered a new one, twice (and being honest here, the password contained an obscenity), and it KICKED ME OFF! it said 'Oops,didn't work,we'll contact you.'

Right. That was four days ago.
Brainstorm! Health Care Girl- um, that is, Quilter Girl can take over from here.
After all, I have a full time job.
And it seems that getting-and keeping- health care is a full time job.
On a brighter note, stay tuned for the Alaska Bike Trip update later this week.

Obamacare Final Wrap-Up. Hopefully!

Yes folks, after a mere 115 days, we got a letter telling us we were in! We officially have medical coverage through Obamacare. Woo hoo! It did note however that we hadn't chosen a doctor yet and suggested we do so. Two days later we received the Member Handbook, with a list of providers. A little cart before the horse there. That's no issue, compared to the 45 phone calls (3 successful) and numerous other challenges getting in. Yet we are in, we have health care coverage and dental for the two of us, for $46 a month, because we're poor. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all of you for paying for our health insurance. Unless of course, you are poor too.

The price will change in the near future, as soon as we get our tax return. We'll let our Obamacare friends know that we're no longer poor.
Unless we're still poor.

That should be a wrap for our Obamacare saga.
Thanks for following.

Obamacare- The Grief Continues

I thought the saga was over. We were going to be eligible for healthcare on April 1. April Fool's Day, how appropriate. However, we got a wrench thrown in the gearbox today. First, some background:

I applied for O'Care first on December 2, and haven't gotten it yet. During the application process, we discovered we were poor and eligible for free healthcare. Amazing. The website told me I could be I could alsobe eligible for welfare! Well, why not? I started the application process, but it asked too many appropriate questions such as, do you have any Real Estate? Yes. A lot. Do you have any stocks? Bonds? Dividends? Yes yes and yes, to the questions that Oboyohboycare should have asked. I knew I wouldn't be eligible, so I stopped the application process. Last week I got a letter, and was approved for welfare! I sent the letter back, indicating that I now have a paying job and don't need it. Okay, brace yourself.

Got a voicemail today, that said something like this: "Mr. Parsons, I got your reply that said you are gainfully employed and not in need of welfare. I'm happy for you. I also assume you will not need helathcare and will dismiss your application. Call me if you have any questions."

Noooooo! You have got to be kidding me! The question isn't if I want health care of not, the question is how much, if any, I need to pay for it. I called ___ to explain it to him. After two attempts, I reached him a record! Told him the story.He wanted employment verification within ten days of my application would be denied and I would need to apply all over again. I tried not to chew up my phone and spit it out. Told him I'd take care of it today. He said wonderful. "However, you'll get a letter in the mail denying your benefits. Just ignore it. So the denial is in writing, but he says we're good. Not too comfortable with that. 

So, for those of you keeping track of the numbers:

51   phone calls. 

4    of those phone calls successful. 

5    applications

3    denials of applications- ignore them!

100 days attempting to get healthcare

3 payments made with no healthcare

2-1/2 hours on hold.

What a journey!

 

Obamacare Update

No news is bad news: after 74  days and a plethora of attempts, we've gotten no medical cards, no provider directories, no contact whatsoever. We did get a bill for our dental coverage, but what coverage? Still waiting for that too.
I'm afraid (seriously, I am afraid!) I'll have to call for an update. If you remember, the last call was because we were informed in writing that we weren't getting coverage, and after a one hour phone call, we got verbal assurance we we're covered. Doesn't look good.

More Obamacare Chaos, XII

Sorry folks, but I thought the Obamacare saga had ended. We signed up, paid our premium with our credit card online, and stood by the mailbox, hopping up and down from one foot to another, waiting for cards and health care coverage. Instead we got a letter that we couldn't figure out. Did we have coverage, or not? I got online (1st try!) and entered my username and password. Here's what I found:

'NOTICE OF YOUR ENROLLMENT EXPIRATION Your enrollment for a Qualified Health Plan (QHP) through Nevada Health Link has expired due to non-payment of full premium amount by the due date. You may start a new application for the next available coverage effective date. If you have already mailed your check and it is received by the due date, please give us few business days for processing. If you have questions or if you would like to request a refund on any partial payments, please contact Nevada Health Link Customer Service...' You are kidding me! Start a new application! I'll call tomorrow. That will be call number 44, one of which has been successful. Tomorrow/today. I called, and got through on the first try! Sat on hold for fifty-three minutes, and Armando came on. I explained the drama and he told me it was a glitch. Everything's fine. I have a problem with that. The letter and the website indicate IN WRITING that I'm out, but Armando tells me I'm in. I'll just have to believe him and wait for another confirmation, with a different result. Back to the mailbox, hopping and hoping. For you numbers people, it's day 58, phone call number 44, and 2-1/2 hours on hold. And five applications.

Obamacare XI, Success! Pretty Sure No Kidding!

On my forty eighth total attempt to call the Nevada Health Link Center, the call went through! I almost hung up on it, I've been so used to the calls failing. After waiting on hold for an hour and twenty eight minutes (honest), Deborah picked up and offered to help me. She was very friendly and seemed to know what she was doing. I told her my CRM number and explained the dilemma: The website thought my wife didn't seek health care. Deborah said it would be best to start the application process over. I got online and she walked me through it. Actually, crawled me through it.

Without belaboring details, I reset my username and passwords four times because it said I had the wrong ones, as I tried to access the website 11 times. On twelve, it let me in! I filled in blanks and when it got to my address, it choked. So we STARTED OVER AGAIN. That's like going on a road trip and having a flat tire 600 miles into the trip and driving back to the starting point to fix the flat. We restarted four times.
Seven more attempts and it wouldn't recognize my username and password again. Deborah decided to deactivate the four accounts, start really really fresh, informing me that the website was incredibly slow.

Have you kept up? 19 attempts at usernames and passwords, four different applications, and four and a half hours. But we got coverage! Medical and dental. $23 and change each a month, because we're poor.
Speaking of poor, I tried signing up for food stamps and I have great news. They ask myriad questions about savings accounts, rental income, dividends, and plenty of others, and we aren't eligible. I do find that relieving.
Thirty-seven days later, we are in. That wasn't so bad.
Oh yes it was!
For your viewing pleasure, a few jokes and cartoons. Keep smiling!

Obamacare X, I Got An Answer!

On December 5, I emailed my state Obamacare provider, asking why in the world my wife was ineligible for Obamacare. Then I went and asked her if she smoked. She claims no, but I haven't found another evil the Affordable Healthcare people don't like. Their advertisements seem to endorse casual sex, risky living and  ANY preexisting condition.

A friend indicated it would be more cost effective to not get insurance, pay the  penalty, then if anything should happen, just sign up. Better hurry, you're getting blood on the keyboard.
Anyway,on January 4, after less than a month, I got a reply to my query:
'Due to the nature of your question, we would like to suggest you contact the Customer Service Call Center for personal assistance from a Customer Service Representative. We can be reached at 1-855-768-5465. Our hours of operation are: Monday-Friday 8:00am-8:00 pm and 9:00am-3:00pm Saturday and Sunday.'

I waited until after the holiday chaos, and made six phone calls. I got, "All circuits are busy. Please try again." If you're keeping track, that's 45 consecutive calls, without getting through.
You suppose I'm going to have to pay a fine? Nah, we have some pathetic insurance already. At least they answer the phone.
I hope we get this thing going soon, I need the food stamps.

  

Obamacare VIII,Total Insanity

Cheryl the broker called today! She had some great ideas for registering for Obamacare:
1.) Wait until January or February. "You won't have to pay a fine." Right. The problem is, our current coverage has a $250,000 limit, unacceptable to the feds, so I'm expecting a Dear John letter from that provider any day.
2.) Try to apply late at night or early in the morning.
She's learned a few things, too. Like for instance, if you're on the phone for an hour and forty five minutes, you'll get cut off. Ooooh, if that doesn't make someone want to go postal. I'd like to know her secret to at least getting through on the phone, because I've never gotten through. I call six times a day (my limit) and always get,"All circuits are full. Please try again later."
Okay, so what about my wife's ineligibility? Cheryl recommended I get on the site, get on 'settings,' and go to 'terminate' and start the entire process over. Sounds like fun! I did. The site moved with all the speed of a sloth in hibernation, the little blue wheel spinning with a hypnotic effect. It timed out twice. Finally, I got in! I went where Cheryl instructed, and got to 'Terminate Policy.' I hit 'submit' and it said something like, 'You need to give a reason for the termination.' Okay. But I can't find a place to write it! I hit the 'x' to take the message away. Maybe I could type my reason behind it. No. It went to the previous page,so I tried terminating it again. Got the same error message.
So I can't get the coverage, and I can't stop it either!
Never seen anything like it.

Obamacare VII- How Did We Get Here?

Day eleven of our search for health care. On day seven I discovered we were poor, and eligible for Medicaid and food stamps. What criteria determined we were poor?
First, when filling out our application, we needed to give our last tax return information, ending 12/31/12. If you've been following me, you know that in '12, Quilter Girl and I spent over eight months traveling around the country on a motorcycle with a pop top tent trailer.You could say we were homeless, but that seems a bit harsh.
However, we didn't work in any employment capacity.
"All right,Parsons," you say, "That's enough! You own five businesses, right?"
Yep. The California business, a twelve year old construction company, in partnership with my good friend Gordie, lost money. Our California Real Estate investment company, did too. My son's business continued to bleed money as well, and our Nevada commercial Real Estate company lost money due to high vacancies (as much as 66%) and because we got screwed out of over fifty thousand dollars in back rent from a church. Yes, you read that right. Pastor Antiwon Carter is a cheat and a thief. We also spent a great deal of cash on a 'junkyard dog' attorney who, if anyone could collect it, she could. She successfully collected a little over twelve hundred dollars for us.

We had stock dividends that did well and were reported in our Obamacare survey.
Our residential Real Estate business clicked right along. However, coupled with the other losers and an accounting procedure called 'loss carry over' (previous losses), our Adjusted Gross Income for the year 2012 was $8,600. Pretty pathetic. That's life in Nevada and California, two of the worst hit states in the Great Recession. Haven't seen any bailout money yet. Oops, maybe I will soon!
But poor? No. If we really needed cash, we could siphon some off the IRA (I'm eligible this year), sell a house, a motorcycle or perhaps blood.
However, when you read about the plight of Americans (and many do have quite a plight, I know), remember me.

The Obamacare health care search? Still haven't gotten through to see why Quilter Girl is ineligible, and haven't heard from our broker.
The journey continues.
If you'd like to send us money for our impoverished situation, just go to www.wowkevinissopatheticandIwanttohelp.com and follow the directions.

Obamacare VI.What the-?

I haven't heard from Cheryl (my Proxy, who acts in my behalf) since last Friday, so I called her and left a voice mail yesterday. No reply.
I accessed the site, got through the maze of pages and found a health care plan that looked good (free,because I'm poor) and a dental plan for $25 and change, $50 deductible.

Yet I still have no answer for why my wife isn't eligible. Shes' not a smoker, which apparently is the WORST thing you can do for your health (I wonder if Paul Walker smoked?), so what's the problem?
They provided a phone number for questions. Well, I have a question!
I called and got a nice lady's voice,  'All circuits are busy. Please try your call again later.' I did. Six times. So far.

Obamacare VI- HUGE Surprise!

When I started this saga a week ago, I never anticipated the huge surprise I would encounter last Friday (by the way, it was our 39th anniversary too. A date I won't forget). Fasten your seat belts.
I discovered that my wife and I are poor.
If you know me, you'll be as surprised as we were.
Here's how we found out:
When a person signs up for Obamacare, they ask you a plethora of questions. Many of them are about money. How much did you make as of your last tax return, etc. I took our last tax return (it's around an inch thick), ending 12/31/12, and took the numbers right off of it. For sure, because it says at the the end of the survey something like this;
I declare UNDER PENALTY OF PERJURY that the information is true and correct,to the best of my abilities. So I TOLD THE TRUTH.

The website doubles as a portal to other government programs, and it informed me I was qualified for Medicaid and SNAP/TANF. That is, food stamps.Shocker! I'm pretty sure I'm eligible for Section 8 housing too. It made me think of a few funny things:
I would love to drive up to Walmart in my Corvette Z-06 and buy my groceries with food stamps. I just love the irony of that.
I'm tempted to apply for Section 8 housing too, so I could keep renting out my house, along with my seven other rental houses, and save money. Perhaps I could make my cabin a Section 8 rental unit and rent it to myself.
I'm going to leave you to ponder this. How could a guy like me, with so many assets (five businesses, Real Estate, a nice 401(K) and stocks) be poor?
Stay tuned, more details and stunning information on Thursday.

And the Obamacare update? Heard nothing from Cheryl today, so I'll call and nag her tomorrow. Checking the health care portal however, it looks like I'm eligible for two programs that are free. One of the advantages of being poor.

Obamacare V, Help's On the Way!

I found access to a broker, through my son's company. She's helped us before, so I got into the website, found the settings (Thanks Sheryl!) and appointed her to be my administrator. Wonderful! We talked about the saga so far and she sounded distant... like she was distracted. She was- she tried to get on the website. No dice! 

She assured me she'd get on eventually and would call and get some answers. She'll contact me next week with answers.
The saga continues.