Obamacare is Obamanable!

This is not to say that I think people should not have access to affordable health care. I do. But we do NOT have an insurance problem we have a WELLNESS problem. And we have skyrocketing, out of control healthcare costs problems - not an insurance problem to reiterate the point. And the only seeming beneficiary of the Affordable Healthcare Act are the insurance companies. Not citizens like me, a member of the middle class who continues to be squeezed and bear the brunt of lousy policies as demonstrated below.

The healthcare offered by my employer has gone up to $450/month for an individual due to rising healthcare costs and an aging population of participants in our plan. This is simply unaffordable. So I decided to check out the Covered California website to see what my options are. Frankly, they are not very good. I was trying to compare apples to apples with the existing plan that I have, where I love my doctors and medical group, and have been for 20 years without incident. Mind you, I'm healthy. But the reason we buy insurance is for the "what if" and "just in case" scenarios. When I first logged onto the site back in the fall it crashed and was unavailable for a least a few days. When I was finally able to get a sustaining few moments on the site and navigate around there was not an option to shop for plans until you created an application which, incidentally, is an arduous process. I did not do this but when I returned some weeks later they have brilliantly added this feature. I perused the available plans and determined that it would cost me about as much to buy from the marketplace since my current plan is purchased with pre-tax dollars. Not to mention having to change all of my records over to a new carrier. I decided to stay out. Well now it is mandatory that I purchase through the California exchange and lo and behold the plan I chose, although it is the highest tier Platinum plan with one of the highest monthly premiums, does not accept my doctor or medical group even though our champion of change Obama himself has promised that I could "keep my doctor".

Once I learned this information I decided to change the plan I had enrolled in noting that I could keep my doctor if I went to a lesser coverage plan with premiums in the ball park of better plans. Since I'm healthy I thought this the best course of action in the near term. I called the phone number listed on all Covered California correspondence and the automated voice says they are not able to take the call due to high volume and refers you to the website. Luckily I have a computer and went to the website where I was directed to a live chat page. I waited 2 hours for an attendant to assist me but since they finish work at 8 pm and it was 7:56 I was disconnected without having all of my questions answered. So I continued the hunting expedition to try and change the plan. This is not possible. It forces you to terminate your participation and gives you a nasty warning message about it being the law to have health coverage. Moving on it now gives me the option to choose a plan but as soon as I click to do so an error message pops up preventing this action.

I am an educated person with advanced computer skills and a general knowledge of how insurance and healthcare works. If this ridiculous and frustrating first step of choosing a plan is an indication of the service provided if you need it than I'm just as happy to sit this one out and take my chances on not having insurance. As touted, the model only works and is only affordable if healthy people are part of the pool. Well, Obamacare, you just lost this healthy chick cause you can't get your act together.