ACA sign Up

[tomz]

Quote:

Originally Posted by rbmrtn You're not alone. Mine started doing that, Saturday I think. Login just keeps going back to the login screen. Put in the wrong info a error is displayed, the correct info returns a clean login screen.

I am having the same issue. I enter my id and password, the screen blinks and I am asked for my id and password again. Tried to chat but gave up after 5 minutes.

[Sue J]

Oh, fun times at the healthcare.gov site!

[MRG]

Quote:

Originally Posted by RunningBum Today is the first day I got to the login screen. My password didn't work. I tried the "reset password" but failed one of my security questions. I had to call and they said that they had to reset all passwords as part of a system upgrade to get more people in. Not sure if that included the security questions as well. They said they reset my account and I would get an email within 2 hours with instructions. So far, no email. I was able to get through the call with little or no waiting, and the person who answered was able to help, assuming I actually do get the email.

Been waiting 5 days for my email, first they said it was 2 hours, then 2 days. I'll try again based on them reseting all passwords.

MRG

MRG

[Accidental Retiree]

Here in CA, I finally ventured onto the CoveredCA website. On my MacBook, with Safari, the plans no longer all show up like they did before. For some reason, the side-to-side slider arrows won't go past whatever first appears on the screen. They used to work, before the go-live, and I could see several plans, but now just 3).

So . . . I downloaded Chrome, got a very different looking site, and could not log in once I created an account. It just won't go anywhere.

[ziggy29]

Actually made a little progress! (Now that we've done that, I'll have to do it again for a different scenario). Reported back to our council with what I found and they will be paying the full coverage for a "gold" plan for my wife since they have budget for that, and I'll use the Exchange since as a member of a federally recognized Indian tribe I will have no cost sharing, the subsidized premium will be less than $385 a month (which would be the extra we would pay if I were in that plan which has cost sharing), and that $385 a month is more than 9.5% of our income so it's not "affordable" for me even if I were eligible for coverage through my wife's employment.

I think that's all right, anyway....

[oldtrig]

I am on Medicare. I waited until 65 before I retired just for that reason. Now my wife is a different story. She turns 65 in 6 months. Her BCBS rates will double if she keeps it. I say the heck with it. Roll the dice and we will just wait for Medicare to kick in. I feel sorry for all you people that are young and retired.

[Buckeye]

Quote:

Originally Posted by oldtrig I am on Medicare. I waited until 65 before I retired just for that reason. Now my wife is a different story. She turns 65 in 6 months. Her BCBS rates will double if she keeps it. I say the heck with it. Roll the dice and we will just wait for Medicare to kick in. I feel sorry for all you people that are young and retired.

Would you wish you had kept her BCBS if she ends up in a serious accident, or has a heart attack, or has a bad fall that causes a serious head injury?

If your answer is 'no', then y'all are ready to accept the risk and will have no regrets if she has a serious health event while uninsured.

[ohyes]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MichaelB Have you tried a different browser?

Genius. Switched to IE and got in on third try. Have an account now and worked through until the income part. Got tired of being on the computer, so will continue tomorrow.

State of AR retired public school employee insurance folks have not said we can even buy through the Exchange. Googling tells me that retirees can. The guy I spoke with on the phone (AR) insinuated I am trying to pull a fast one. He advised me to make a decision in January 2014. I pointed out that open enrollment ends Oct. 31. My suspicion is that they want to prevent much exodus from the state plan. Who knows?

Bottom line, DH and I must figure something out in next couple weeks.

Thanks again for advice about changing browsers. Wish I had thought of it. Also wish you would decide on best coverage route for my family.

[rbmrtn]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ohyes State of AR retired public school employee insurance folks have not said we can even buy through the Exchange. Googling tells me that retirees can. The guy I spoke with on the phone (AR) insinuated I am trying to pull a fast one. He advised me to make a decision in January 2014. I pointed out that open enrollment ends Oct. 31.

I think you enroll in your current plan, then you have until 03/31 to decide if want a plan through the exchange. If you do then just drop your retiree plan and buy through the exchange.

Not sure why you are asking your employee insurance folks about purchasing on the exchange.

[ohyes]

I am still waiting on answers to two questions from retiree plan folks, but the Plan Summary tells me I can NOT drop/add/change except during the open enrollment month of October. No changes, except for life changing events (marriage, divorce, birth, death)

So, that is why I am trying to clear it through them. The fear of no health insurance propels me to ask questions. I am optimistic/dubious.

Believe me, I hope your idea is correct. I am pretty confused, so appreciate the input.

[REWahoo]

I haven't been following this thread closely so this may be old news. The local news provided a link to a "back door" into healthcare.gov allowing anyone on the Federal operated exchange to view what plans/insurers were available in their individual county:

https://www.healthcare.gov/health-plan-information/

[rbmrtn]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ohyes I am still waiting on answers to two questions from retiree plan folks, but the Plan Summary tells me I can NOT drop/add/change except during the open enrollment month of October. No changes, except for life changing events (marriage, divorce, birth, death)

Maybe something getting lost in translation. I assume when they say drop they are talking about dropping a person covered by your plan but keeping the others on the plan ( the opposite of adding another person ) same as making a change.

I was saying cancel your policy with them completely. I don't see how how they can stop you from doing that. Just don't make that monthly payment and they'll drop you quicker than you can think about it.

[Sue J]

Quote:

Originally Posted by rbmrtn Maybe something getting lost in translation. I assume when they say drop they are talking about dropping a person covered by your plan but keeping the others on the plan ( the opposite of adding another person ) same as making a change. I was saying cancel your policy with them completely. I don't see how how they can stop you from doing that. Just don't make that monthly payment and they'll drop you quicker than you can think about it.

Don't know about for ohyes's pension plan, but for DH's it's deducted from your pension direct deposit. So if they don't allow changes after open enrollment they just keep deducting it.

[scrabbler1]

I first tried to access the New York exchange website last Friday. It was slow but I was able to bypass the first step (getting an ID and password) because I had one already from a few years ago but did not realize right away that it was applicable to use it again here.

On Saturday the website was running more quickly but I had some issues with the subsidy (I posted them in a spearate thread and my fellow forum members were able to get me a quick answer which got me through. It turned out that the question, "Do you have coverage now?" is really in the future tense, as in "Will you have coverage on 1/1/2014?" I do have coverage now but the bare-bones policy is not ACA-compliant and will be terminated at the end of 2013 (I knew this months ago). So once I switched my answer to "no" that made me eligible for the subsidy (I was being denied before I switched my answer to that key question).

I already had the prices of the Silver plans I was seeking thanks to someone in this forum posting a link to them for many states, so I already had a good idea of which to choose. Once I got to that page again, I was able to bring up more details about the plan.

Back to the subsidy, I hit another small snag about verifying one's income i order tohave the subsidy applied on a monthly basis against the total premium. But once again, thanks to the help of others here in the forum, I was pointed to a page in the IRS website about how the subsidy interacts with the federal income tax return and taxes due. Because I have income taxes withheld from my investment income, I pay estimated taxes a few times a year. What I can do is to use the "overpayment" (i.e. subsidy) of my premiums as a tax withholding method, eliminating one of my quarterly estimated income tax payments and it will all come out in the wash the following April. This saves me the trouble of sending in income verification and going through that process.

My only other minor annoying issue (anyone else have this?) is that I could not print key pages from the website such as confirmation screens. My printer and PC are working fine, as I can print other web pages and other things such as spreadsheets or Word files. What I did was to cut and paste the relevant part of the screen to a Word file then print it out. Some of the formatting and graphics got frigged up a bit but all the key text and numbers are there and quite readable.

So in the end I am just fine for now. Thanks to you in the forum who gave me some good info in advance and got me through my small crisis last Saturday.

[MRG]

Quote:

Originally Posted by scrabbler1 My only other minor annoying issue (anyone else have this?) is that I could not print key pages from the website such as confirmation screens. My printer and PC are working fine, as I can print other web pages and other things such as spreadsheets or Word files. What I did was to cut and paste the relevant part of the screen to a Word file then print it out. Some of the formatting and graphics got frigged up a bit but all the key text and numbers are there and quite readable.

You might try a tool like 'snag it' , there's a free version. You can copy and paste or save the screen image. If you download, say no to anything else it asks to install. There's probably 15 other free tools that do the same thing, I've just used this one before.

Glad for your sucess.

MRG

[jflynn4]

So ..... I was able to complete enrollment on Friday but never received any type of confirmation so I called the 800 #. They confirmed that I had successfully completed enrollment but didn't know (unbelievable!) whether I'd receive a confirmation from them(!!!). They recommended waiting until today and to call Blue Cross to confirm they received the enrollment.

So just off the phone with BC.

They "can't confirm" anything but did say that, if they did receive the enrollment, that I would be notified via mail .... But cannot tell me if that would be sooner or later. The guy did tell me that I should print off confirmation of the enrollment from the exchange "in case I'm not properly enrolled so that I can prove it was done." (yep, I'm sure that'd help navigate thru).

So ... Given all that's been going on within the halls of government, I'm figuring it no better than a 50-50 proposition that any of this is going to actually happen anyway so I guess I'll just sit tight for a month to see what happens.

Really not surprised given the way this all started on the exchange........will be interesting, though, to see how things proceed as the number of enrollments start to gather steam in numbers. Hopefully they can get themselves together.

[rbmrtn]

I am still stuck with the login loop. I did manage to reach the help and confirmed what someone else posted. They made changes over the weekend that required all the passwords to be reset. They said to go through the link on the login page for "Forgot Password" to reset.

Time to make another pot of coffee....

[ohyes]

I remain confused and frustrated.

Logged in this morning, hoping to finish application on healthcare.gov, but my application will not pop up. A link shows i have an application "in process"....cannot get to it.

Damien on chat was not helpful. Told me the system has glitches with so many users.

My last post was poorly worded. We are not allowed to get into the public school retiree heath insurance, nor drop it except during open enrollment - which has been in October for the last 32 years. We cannot make changes either--in addition to not being able to enroll/un-enroll. (and yes, it is deducted from my pension check--required)

Disregard question below. I think i figured out the answer....
This morning I read (had forgotten this) that this AR retiree insurance will pay Parts A & B of Medicare and will cover the 20% that Medicare will not cover. Medicare is a few years away for both of us. Does anybody know if this is a major perk?--a great thing that DH and i should hang onto?

Thanks.

[MRG]

Quote:

Originally Posted by rbmrtn I am still stuck with the login loop. I did manage to reach the help and confirmed what someone else posted. They made changes over the weekend that required all the passwords to be reset. They said to go through the link on the login page for "Forgot Password" to reset. Time to make another pot of coffee....

Thanks, I called about my 7 day old password email. Person tried to force a reset on their end, they got an error indicating my account was in error.

I'm going to set up new account today with different email. When I tried to login it was ok speed wise(for those seconds), queue to a live human was too.

MRG

[rbmrtn]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MRG Thanks, I called about my 7 day old password email. Person tried to force a reset on their end, they got an error indicating my account was in error. I'm going to set up new account today with different email. When I tried to login it was ok speed wise(for those seconds), queue to a live human was too. MRG

I just went thru the reset password link and it is now telling me one of the security questions is incorrect. ( I recorded the questions and answers when I completed the enrollment)

May have to try the new account approach.