A host of new glitches are arising now that the controversial Affordable Care Act has gone into effect with one of the most outrageous involving new parents who are being told the systems automated feature enabling them to add a new baby to their policy will be “available later.”
In a report entitled “Bungle of Joy”, Fox News is reporting on the latest glitch regarding ObamaCare which is making it nearly impossible to update coverage online for any life change, including the birth of a new baby.
Parents who need to get a new child added to the policy will have to contact the insurer directly because the feature that would allow them to do so through HealthCare.gov isn’t working yet. This means that they’ll have to pay the higher premium for the additional coverage, but will be unable to update the federal records which could provide them with higher subsidies. Instead, they’re being told to change their status with insurers now, then come back later to tell the government.
“The function that prevents people from entering in a newborn pertains to the computerized ‘change in circumstance’ feature,” Fox explains. “It was supposed to have been part of the federal system from the start. But that feature got postponed as the government scrambled to fix technical problems that overwhelmed the health care website during its first couple of months.”
“It’s just another example of `We’ll fix that later,”‘ said Bob Laszewski, an industry consultant who told Fox he has received complaints from several insurer clients. “This needed to be done well before January. It’s sort of a fly-by-night approach.”
Aaron Albright, an administration spokesman, told Fox that “we are currently working with insurers to find ways to make changing coverage easier while we develop an automated way for consumers to update their coverage directly.”
Having a baby isn’t the only “change in circumstance” that is currently causing Americans to pay more money and endure more hassles for their health insurance. If a person gets married, divorces, dies, changes jobs or income, or moves to a different community, they will have to call their insurer to change their policy and pay the higher premium cost until a revised government subsidy can kick in.
A Dec. 31 circular from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services which addressed the problem stated that the ability to make these changes online will become “available later” but gives no indication when that might be.
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