Health Care Thread

Look man I understand and sympathize with your frustration, I turn into a complete asshole on the phone when dealing with those retards as well. But others in the thread have suggested bypassing the .gov aspect altogether since you aren't looking for a subsidy and instead deal with a broker that knows the ins and outs a lot better than one of the govt. chimpanzees on the phone.

TheBeagle_sl said:

Look man I understand and sympathize with your frustration, I turn into a complete asshole on the phone when dealing with those retards as well. But others in the thread have suggested bypassing the .gov aspect altogether since you aren't looking for a subsidy and instead deal with a broker that knows the ins and outs a lot better than one of the govt. chimpanzees on the phone.

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I can't find one that lets you come in personally. I called and they have the same info the national healchare line has, the application is locked. They can't start a new one or open the old one.

I'm just going to skip it today. I really didn't think this would take all day.

Sorry I'm not used to dealing with people who just let it hang at, I dunno. I'm used to dealing with people that if they don't know can find someone who does know.

Jesus, what a clusterfuck. Sorry man.

wormie_sl said:

I deal with people like this fairly often the worst thing you can do is piss off little people with power over you. Swallow your pride and be nice. These turds do not give two fuck about your problems and do not get paid enough to do so. This is the reality of things so smile, be polite and hope you only have to deal with this shit once.

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That's all right. I can do without insurance if I have to before I kiss ass to someone that was fucking handing out fliers at the mall a couple of months ago. Done with it for now.

Looked it up, I have till August 28th or something around then to get on Cobra. I'll probably go with that for the rest of the year.

Gonna get my secretary to deal with it. Normally I try and not get her involved in personal shit but my patience has run out and she gets paid to be patient with idiots on the phone.

I gotta call the FCC and deal with a license issue, lucky me day.

Just go here and take 10 minutes:Census. I think you said you're in Texas, and this is the Blue Cross/Blue Shield enrollment site. One of the first questions it asks is if you want help paying for insurance, which you say no to and then it won't bring subsidies or income into it. Took me 2 minutes to select a plan and enter basic information. From here all I would need to do to enroll is enter my social, create a login, and enter my payment info.. Literally a 5-10 minute process, and you don't have to deal with the monkeys on the phone. Just so you know, you need to do this by the 15'th to get a Sept. 1 effective date. If you wait til the 16'th or 28'th the earliest effective date is October.

Disp_sl said:

Just go here and take 10 minutes:Census. I think you said you're in Texas, and this is the Blue Cross/Blue Shield enrollment site. One of the first questions it asks is if you want help paying for insurance, which you say no to and then it won't bring subsidies or income into it. Took me 2 minutes to select a plan and enter basic information. From here all I would need to do to enroll is enter my social, create a login, and enter my payment info.. Literally a 5-10 minute process, and you don't have to deal with the monkeys on the phone. Just so you know, you need to do this by the 15'th to get a Sept. 1 effective date. If you wait til the 16'th or 28'th the earliest effective date is October.

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I'm no longer in TX, I moved at the start of the year to take the job that offered insurance lol.

Anyway finally got thru to a guy who wanted to help and he unlocked my app. But he never could get the income deal right so he just put in $0.00 and told me to go with that and offered me a subsidy of $385 per month lol.

Jeeze it's like the keystone cops. The guy said he had finished my application and was giving me the options and I told him I would look on the net after he finished my application. While he was entering whatever on the computer another person called me back to tell me they couldn't unlock my application and would delete and I could start over.

You guessed it, when I logged in my application that the guy said he unlocked and completed was listed as deleted and it gives me the option to start over.

The first guy that said he completed it gave me an ID number to look it up later. That number now says it's no longer valid. He emailed me a PDF stating I was accepted and that I would be elibigible for the special coverage period, but now my app has been deleted and my number is listed as invalid. It shows my application and a place to start another one, but the app is listed as "deleted/closed".

The earliest it will start if I pay today assuming they fix it is September 1st because I would had to apply before July 15th to get it done in August.

I do get a laugh at every time I talk to someone they ask me if I am up for adoption currently. Umm I just gave you my birthdate.

If you don't actually qualify for a subsidy I wouldn't want them to do that - you'll get hit with it at tax time. (maybe. who knows what kind of clusterfuck that's going to be, at least for the for the first few years.) What happens is they ask you for documentation to verify your income, and after x weeks/months they'll get around to adjusting it.

Also, with $0 income, the system will think you are supposed to be getting medicaid instead. You can't actually get a subsidy without income above the poverty line.

If you're dealing with a fucked up healthcare.gov application the easiest thing to do is just ignore the old one and start another one. Nothing really matters until you get to the point where you are actually picking a plan and your insurer gets around to contacting you for payment.

Yeah I'm not picking anything related to getting a subsidy. Doesn't matter all the choices even with a subsidy aren't worth paying for. There's no platinum and the gold coverage has network coverage, but I wouldn't even actually be in their network and would have to drive 1-1/2 hours to see any of the Dr's listed in their network or pay 40% of the cost myself. Probably just stick with cobra where at least my network covers the next largest town I live next to where I've had all my work done. The only options available wouldn't have any of that in my network. I would actually have to drive out of state to get into the network.

Looking at their list of providers that would be in my network they don't have a neurologist listed, and the one hospital they have lsited as in network doens't have a MRI - tried that one already. I really don't see the upside at any cost.

I have until Thursday. I may have to change my state of residence. The property I own now actually stradles a state line and if I could move my address to the other end of the property I would be in the network possibly where they actually have medical services.

Tired now I"ll have to get into it tomorrow again. Fixing to go out and blow off steam and bush hog and shoot for a while. I didn't udnerstand why the maxium out of pocket on the silver plan was 1/4 what the the gold plan was and they're from the same company. I'll have to read the fine print later. It currently is listed as under review. I don't know how long that takes as I have till Thursday to get into the limited enrollment deal. I'll call em tomorrow and check on it.

Sorry I get frustrated dealing with some of the poeple. I've been insulated and been in the same industry for 25 years where the name of the game is get it done at any cost, literally and get it done now or sooner. Right before I got sick the last thing I did was get some plate for the customer needed in a turn around. The only supplier in the western hemishphere was in MI. So I got a price on hiring a truck with 3 drivers so they could rotate and drive 24 hours straight thru to make it. That was unacceptable. So I hired a local shop in MI to go pick it up, cut it into smaller pieces and deliver it to the airport where it was loaded into a charter cargo plane and it made it down in about 6 hours total and I billed them $285k just for delivery and they sent me a letter telling me how great it was they finished on schedule and how happy there were.


Day wasn't a total bust, I found a refund check from a hospital tucked into some of my cobra info I missed.
These are the people I deal with everyday, all day. It's a great industry if you like pressure and spending other peoples money.

Big Phoenix_sl said:

Its not about whether or not how often you decide youre gonna have your blood cleaned, its about being able to decide who does it or were they do it. Imagine if your car insurance was managed by your employer, how horrible would your service be?

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What provider you have do it or the location out of the available ones is a symptom of only SOME insurances (HMOs generally).

I personally can go to any provider I want to in the nation for almost any condition, with a handful of cases needing a referral, and even then referrals not being for a specific provider just a category of provider.

Borzak_sl said:

stuff

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As someone who's done a decade of telephone tech support in one form or another, much of what you've said is just screaming to have the digital equivalent of spit on your burger.

Most peons genuinely like to help the folks who call up. You don't stay in a job where every call has the possibility to be a guy screaming at you because it's ALL YOUR FAULT he refused to read or did something stupid.

That said, they are a near minimum wage flunky who has the power to cripple whatever you're calling in about.

So suck it up Sunshine, and be nice to the little people, lest that little person round file your application, mis-schedule your install date, flag your account for deletion, walk you through deleting critical system files, etc etc etc.

Sure, at the end of the day, IF they are flagrantly enough at abusing what little power they have, AND they get caught, they're out a job; but your life will be a tiny slice of hell for far longer than it takes them to apply at 7-11.

So be nice. You've already seen the consequence of calling in 8000 times and starting up new tickets each time. 2 People who are both trying to do the right thing for and by you end up stepping all over each other and you get fucked in the process.

And no, none of them care what type of bigshot you are in your chosen field; how your profession handles shit, etc etc etc.

The rules suck and are stupid, but you know them, so play by them. If you know the page times out after 10 minutes, set a damn timer on your phone and do refreshes or back-forwards to keep that from happening.

Part of being the Bigger Man is knowing when to sit down, shut up, and say yes sir and thank you.

Ninen_sl said:

As someone who's done a decade of telephone tech support in one form or another, much of what you've said is just screaming to have the digital equivalent of spit on your burger.

Most peons genuinely like to help the folks who call up. You don't stay in a job where every call has the possibility to be a guy screaming at you because it's ALL YOUR FAULT he refused to read or did something stupid.

That said, they are a near minimum wage flunky who has the power to cripple whatever you're calling in about.

So suck it up Sunshine, and be nice to the little people, lest that little person round file your application, mis-schedule your install date, flag your account for deletion, walk you through deleting critical system files, etc etc etc.

Sure, at the end of the day, IF they are flagrantly enough at abusing what little power they have, AND they get caught, they're out a job; but your life will be a tiny slice of hell for far longer than it takes them to apply at 7-11.

So be nice. You've already seen the consequence of calling in 8000 times and starting up new tickets each time. 2 People who are both trying to do the right thing for and by you end up stepping all over each other and you get fucked in the process.

And no, none of them care what type of bigshot you are in your chosen field; how your profession handles shit, etc etc etc.

The rules suck and are stupid, but you know them, so play by them. If you know the page times out after 10 minutes, set a damn timer on your phone and do refreshes or back-forwards to keep that from happening.

Part of being the Bigger Man is knowing when to sit down, shut up, and say yes sir and thank you.

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I'm sure what you say is correct.

I also am sure that's why I have an assistant/secretary to take care of shit like that. I have other shit to do than sucks someones dick to get them to do their job.

I'm not a bigshot in my field. I just not going to sit around and kiss ass to pamper some fuck half a country away. If some of you don't have better shit to do than dick with that stuff I'm sorry. If more people didn't put up with it maybe we wouldn't breed so many of them that can't simply do the job they're paid to do. I'm not going to play some minimum wage worker game so he/she can go home at the end of the day and feel better about themself. That definetly is not my job. Sorry I'm not your pal, your friend, your buddy, or whatever else you need, I'm your customer.

I guess taking pride in getting your job done only starts at a certain payscale.

FYI I didn't lose my cool. Didn't get rude. I asked the one guy who didn't speak english well if I could get someone who spoke english. Everyone else I let them work thru their little flowchart and answer yes/no affirmative or whatever they required until they got to the "I don't know" and had no suggestion as to what I could do or what they could do next other than repeated "I dunno" Then I would say OK and go on about finding another solution and calling and talking to someone else. After all the crap of talking to people who were good at saying "I dunno" who were all located in the DC metro area according to what they said when they answered the phone I finally got a woman who said she was in KY and it took her about 3 minutes to actually diagnose the probeam and fix it and say "it happens all the time, we have a fix for it'.

So for the rest of em, fuck em I imagine in a few hours they'll be taking public transit to their minimum wage job again and my problem is fixed. I also got to help the economy because my assistant only works part time and she picks up the hours when I need her, and she located the non 1800 number that lead to the KY call.

Depends entirely on the attitude with the person you're dealing with - I'm going to assume you're in business to some level.

Think about if you were in the middle of working up a contract with someone, and they kept berating you and talking down about the entire process - while they were admitting to a bunch of errors or misinformation...

Think about how long you'd deal with that before you'd walk on the contract because you'd start assuming the pain in the ass wouldn't be worth the money involved in completing the contract. I know for me, when I've had people like that trying to get a job from me, it didn't matter if they were asking for half the actual payscale for the position, if they started taking an attitude or acting as if they knew the job better than experienced people in the field I'd immediately send them packing because that's not the type of person I want representing my company - and indirectly myself.

The customer isn't always right - they're often dead wrong - and when it comes to something as in depth and necessary as health insurance, your penchant for drama and not making sure you understand the details (which has been made abundantly clear here thusfar) puts you in completely the wrong mindset to work out any type of contract negotiation on insurance - which at the end of the day, is what selecting a policy really is.

[In fact, with how you've come off here, I wouldn't be shocked if they took you as inebriated on the phone - I wonder if there's rules against signing someone up for a policy while they seem under the influence - any idea on that Disp?]