Thanks to Pete the Banker, I now have seen the latest comments about the ObamaCare website by everyday Americans. The comments follow the online announcement of improvements by Julie Bataille, Director of Communications for Centers for Medicare & Medicaid which she claimed “greatly enhanced the ability of consumers to use” the website.  

We are on track to meet our goal of having the site work for the vast majority of users by the end of the month. To be clear, Nov. 30 does not represent a “re-launch” of the site. It is not a magical date.  There will be times after Nov. 30 when the site, like any web site, does not perform optimally. And work will continue after Nov. 30 to make further improvements.

But users of the website beg to differ. The comments follow several general themes beginning with issues of security, general rants, questions about where to pay, and, well, you get the picture.

Privacy

This entire weekend, the user name and password screen reverts back to blank user and password forms when I try to log in. And I am somebody who created an account and enrolled in both health and dental plans. As of Friday morning, I was able to log in and see my plans and what I signed up for. But all of sudden, yesterday and today, the login page does not work!! What is going on? Have passwords or user names been altered for existing account holders or is this a site volume issue? No error message, no email notice, no nothing. PLEASE COMMINICATE ERRORS!!!!!

This is an absolute disgrace. And I am a Liberal Democrat. Stop with the propaganda and start communicating what is going on. Based on what I am reading in this blog over the past 48 hours, it is clear that the site is not working properly and perhaps some unintended consequences took place with the so-called Friday night lengthy blackout and fix. Will somebody please come on this blog and let people know what to do with these various concerns????????

 

 

Alerts from Duh.com

If the marketplace can provide a better website at a lower cost, what makes you think it can’t provide better healthcare at a lower cost?

 

Still stuck at set premium tax credit please wait all day. Phone rep answer the same as always some are getting through, now there is a back end issue it’s a glitch or the site is busy keep trying. Don’t they understand if you keep trying it keeps the website bogged down, please wait doesn’t help either. It would have been better to take the site down until the whole thing was fixed. Who has time to keep trying. Time is running out another day down with few sign up how is the website going to handle the 7 million they say that are going to want insurance in the next 22 days.

 

 

It Doesn’t Work

 

I applied 2 weeks ago ( after many failed attempts since Oct. 1) & at that time was able to print an itemized listing of plans available based upon my info. Now I cannot find the plans no matter what, on the healthcare website. I have 2 options whenever trying to get there: I can either check the results of my application or continue on to enroll. Each time I click “continue on to enroll” I get one of 2 options – leave the page or stay on the page. And , of course, both lead nowhere except in a circle. It is so frustrating. And now they give us until Dec. 23 to sign up for Jan. 1 coverage? They extended the deadline a whole week? Wow, that’s impressive when it is now 2 months since this defunct website started & it is still not working properly. Typical of the US government. They all need to be fired.

 

My application shows me twice as 2 separate member of a family with the same SSN. Since October 9th, I’ve made about 7 calls to the support. They could never resolve the problem. They queued up the Advanced Resolution Center (ARC) to call me back during 3 of the calls. The ARC never called back, but I was able to force my way into getting transferred to speak to them. On the first call to ARC on 10/13/2013, the specialist resubmitted my application and made sure it was corrected and said to wait a month before the correction showed and I should receive something in the mail. To date I have received nothing in the mail and I am still listed as 2 people with the same name and SSN on my application. However, I can now, at least, see the plans to enroll in one. The website interface is awful. It does not allow for sorting the available plans by coinsurance, max out of pocket, deductible. It’s like web developers used web techniques from the 1970’s to build this site.

General rants

 

Given the incompetency of everyone connected with the infamous web site, it would appropriate and gracious for you all to RESIGN so that a more competent PRIVATE company might do the j ob.

 

lIKE EVERYTHING ASSOCIATED WITH THIS DISASTER IN THE WHITE HOUSE, THIS WEB SITE IS A DISASTER AS IS OBAMACARE

 

You need to get President Obama out of office. He is causing alot of trouble in his term of office. He has ruined alot of peoples lifes in what he has done. Some people had very good health plans and now we have to look for other plans that are more expensive in premiums, I thought this was suppose to be Affordable Care Act, does the president know what the word affordable means ? Annomys.

 

 

Where is the paymaster?

Simple question but I don’t see many FAQ’s. Im enrolled in a plan but can’t find how to move forward to pay for it……..

 

 

Ah, Great Success!

 

Well good news for me (I hope). This morning I got on and could not enroll. I pushed find my account (application) and it said success . From there it led me through till finally it said application complete! The payment method button wasn’t working so I called and they said I will be getting something from the insurance co. as far as billing. I’m going to call the insurance co. in a couple days to make sure they have my info.The final cost was aprox. $90 more than all the previous estimates. But that is still $587 less than my Cobra. Hopefully in a few days I’ll know if all is well.

 

Well – it appears to fix makes it so the login button no longer works on Safari. Good job! By the way, I notice that my identify verification is still pending two months later – maybe that should’ve been one of your prioritized fixes – it would have resolved issues for a large number of people.

 

 

With Friends Like These

I am a big supporter of the ACA. But, this has been the most frustrating experience I have ever had. December 1 AND still no end in site. Nothing seems to work for me. I see absolutely no “fixes” from my perspective. Still no closer to signing up than I was on Oct 1. No one can help either. No help desk, no call backs, no assistance in resolving issues.

 

 

At last a reset option! I was in an unbreakable series of loops all leading back to a “locked” button. Near as I could tell you thought I should apply for Medicaid from Florida. Where you got that idea, given my stated income and asset levels, I don’t know. Florida turned me down promptly, twice, once when I went to their web site on my own and again when I got there via a HC.gov link. Obviously you weren’t told, or didn’t hear, about that.

Now I can see, by starting over, if you now can screen out the misguided and/or fakers like me. I don’t need health insurance, being, as I told you, 83 and on Medicare just like everybody else over 65, and therefore ineligible, I understand, to shop even for Medi-gap insurance through the exchange.

As a retired federal employee from DOD (not Congress, thank God) I am happy with my long ago decision to make the federal government my career. But as a career IT professional involved with hardware/software procurement and applications implementation for 25 years I just had to see for myself what all the fuss was about.

I waited until Nov 1 to sign up when I read that the web site was 80% faster and that the wee hours were usually free of traffic — if was was up at all. From news reports and my own experience I conclude that the HHS made all the classic mistakes that we were guilty of from 1958 to 1985: too many contracts to too many lowest bidders; no end to end tests; no beta test with one friendly state before taking on the biggest and most hostile part of the country. Etc.

Then of course fire bells rung by the workers were unheard at the top by pointy haired managers and politicos who acted as if they had only to order the computers to work and they would. Good luck with the long hours and no praise ahead. Others have been there before you. I once did two years with every fourth Sunday off, whether I need it or not.

 

 

I have been trying to just get on the site on and off for over 12 hours now and I cannot get verification of my logon credentials. I have set up 2 user ID’s and am going for a third as I type this. No wonder people are frustrated. I lost my insurance and now cant even sign up for new plan. RIDICULOUS!. I tried every trick I could think of and by the way I am in the technology industry so I can imagine how every one else feels.

 

 

Glynis the Good Witch

Some of the answers were provided by a woman named Glynis who presumably is from the government and here to help.

 

 

When you are entering information, be very careful with the format of your answers and follow the examples they give exactly as they look. If they use a dollar sign in one place, then enter a dollar sign. If they don’t use it in another, then don’t enter one. Same thing with entering cents. Also, don’t add any decimals to any place they don’t, like to hours worked, round up or down. And your name should be exactly as it appears on your Social Security card. 

 

 

If you started an application in Oct then you should delete that one and start over with a new one. Make sure you delete your cookies, temporary internet files, and history first then logout and restart your browser.