Log-in to HealthCare.Gov
It’s easy to beat a dead website- to stomp around it’s 404 pages and polite apology screens. So we won’t. Except to post a screen shot from the much vilified website on deadline day, telling you to wait because “HealthCare.Gov has a lot of visitors right now!” If one didn’t want to stick around while the page refreshed it self to see if you could log in, there was an option to type in your email, and they would drop you a line as to when the coast was cleared.
Newshole[DOT]Info sat on the screen for a bit in the late afternoon, coffee in hand and obviously not much going on. We randomly got in. The apology screen turned into the actual website. We logged in and tried to hit the market place. Running pretty smoothly for a time, we were asked what exactly we planned to file income-tax wise. This thing seems be fixed! Aaaaand just as we were going to the Florida options, it crashed. At least for us.
Kill Screen. (And not the fun Donkey Kong kind.)
We are not sure what kind of creature wouldn’t expect this; the website is famous for its’ inability to handle large volumes of traffic, and today is the day the procrastinating levee breaks; the last day.
Today was the deadline to enroll to guarantee coverage for January 1st of the new year. Still a person is able to get insured without penalty if they enroll by March 31st 2014.
The apology screen can be merciless. Static. Uncaring, even with it’s polite text. A small scroll down offered the opportunity to wet your whistles by browsing your state’s plans. You wouldn’t be able to enroll, but you could see what’s out there.
That link takes to you to a page of drop down menus: what kind of insurance you’re looking for, state, age, how many people, and income.
Depending on your income level, one would get a message stating if they were eligible for some kind of “help.” Mostly it determined if you could get a tax credit. If you could, the site then recalculated how much an individual would pay per month after that credit was applied. For kicks (the few the site offered) we went with age 30, and an income range that did not qualify for the credit. This produced a set of figures that were the amount a person would have to pay in full per month.
In Florida, and the county of Miami-Dade: the cheapest plan hovered at around $180 dollars a month, Deductible of $6,3000 a year for an individual. That particular plan called for one to pay for doctor visits until the deductible was reached.
Another like ranged coverage for $189 per person, $5,600 deductible and allowed for $10 copay doctor visits, $75 for specialists, $15 dollars copay for generic drugs, and $500 dollar copay for ER visits before the deductible.
In the other side of the spectrum , the so-called Platinum level: $317 a month per enrollee, $1,000 deductible got $25 dollar doctor visits, $35 specialists , and $8 buck generic drugs. And 20% on ER visits.
Another of it’s kin called for $423 a month, $0 deductible and netted you $10 dollar doctor visits, $20 dollar specialists, $10 dollar generics and $75 dollar ER visits.
For those of you who didn’t glaze over, those of course were just a taste of the plans, and there is much more to it than simplistic stats. But that was a taste of Healthcare.GOV when the application site was down.
This topic has become savage. The Right-Wing has made it a rally cry against socialism, or their version of socialism. There isn’t anything more capitalist, than a capitalist president forcing a country to pay private insurance companies, for coverage.
The outcome of this tax is what all taxes are meant to do, discourage or encourage a behavior. This one, is to make people a little bit more responsible for their eventual poor health.
No one is toasting.
About Frank M
