Real Lives Pt. 2

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Now from TPM Reader RE (see Pt. 1 here) …

I have for years paid for an individual health plan from Blue Cross Blue Shield that is ridiculously expensive and gives me double digit increases in my premiums every year. I am expecting to save thousands of dollars purchasing insurance on the exchange… assuming it ever works.

I live in one of the red states whose conservative Republican state government opted not to create a state exchange instead dumping me in the Federal exchange. I have successfully created a user account on healthcare.gov and submitted my application, but I have not been able to successfully enroll yet. I have tried before last Tuesday and again today. The result is the same. It tells me there is a problem with my eligibility but when I try to View Eligibility Results I am never able to actually see what the problem is or move forward with my enrollment to where I can view my insurance options. I tried the Live Chat support option but I was just given form boilerplate that was not helpful.

I’m trying to be patient and wait for all the website problems to be fixed but it is all extremely frustrating and stressful. I need to be able to find out whether I can or can’t buy insurance on the marketplace pretty soon so I have time to buy insurance off the exchange during the eligibility window if I can’t buy it on the exchange. Everything I have read indicates I should be eligible to buy on the exchange. I wish I could fix whatever I entered wrongly or omitted when I tried to enroll but I can’t even find out what the problem is at this point or edit my application.

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