Our Obama Care Experience

Nothing is more important to me than my family and their health. While working at a local company and interning for a PR firm I knew that I had to do something to get healthcare for my family. I knew our funds were limited and so I asked myself, “Why not try Obama Care?” That was the biggest mistake of my life and I want to make sure no one has to go through what my family went through.

Insurance is expensive, I get it! I have grown up my entire life around insurance because my dad sells it. I knew that it was important to have and that it is a safety net for when life brings you little surprises. Medical visits aren’t cheap, but they are necessary at times and without insurance you better have an amazing job that can pay for all the bills.

My wife and I decided that since I wasn’t getting benefits from the jobs I was working maybe we should give Obama Care a try. We had heard how we would get the benefits of the best insurance in the state that we had before, but at a much lower cost. This sounded like a dream come true, great insurance at an affordable cost, you can’t beat that. Boy were we wrong.

After being on the plan for only a few months I had gotten a full time job with benefits and decided that I no longer needed to be on the plan we had through Obama Care and just be on my work plan, but keep my wife and son on the Obama Care plan since it was better insurance.

During the months of October and November some unexpected health issues came into our life. Our son had his 15 month check up and got 6 immunizations, thinking we had insurance, this was no big deal. Staying on point with regular doctor visits is important to us and we honestly didn’t think twice about his visit.

Then, we were pleased to find out that we were pregnant. We were so excited because we were ready to add more to our little family, but it turned out that this wasn’t in our cards and we miscarried. This happens and you have to go to the doctors office to get things checked out. If you don’t go in there are major health risks including death. So you either go to a doctor or risk your life. We had insurance, or so we thought, and made sure to see our doctor.

Well, then the bills started coming and we noticed that insurance wasn’t covering anything. Why weren’t they covering a thing? We had a great plan, we paid everything and we had paid our co-pay every visit. What was happening? Then you get calls from your doctors offices saying that you don’t have coverage, PANIC.

Apparently, when we decided to take me off the plan Obama Care decided to cancel our entire plan. Our premium was debited from our account just like normal so we assumed everything was fine. Come to find out we weren’t covered at all, but were going to doctors thinking we were fine. This wasn’t our mistake, but yet we were going to have to suffer for the mistake Obama Care had made.

For months the bills were coming and we paid them so we wouldn’t get anything marked on our credit, but it was getting to be too much. We then had to go to the big dogs to get help. My wife hoped there was something that could be done and spent hours on hold waiting to speak to someone who could answer her questions.

Like is said before, my dad sells insurance, so as soon as we discovered we had no insurance we immediately signed up for a plan outside of the marketplace.  He helped us get the new plan and tried to help us get coverage for the two months that we were terminated, but was told by many top dogs that it was impossible.  That’s where a persistent wife comes in, she called multiple times a week until they recovered enough information to reinstate coverage for those terminated months.

Finally we received a letter saying that it was active, but that we needed to call to finalize the plan. She called as soon as she received the letter and after talking to three different people and being on hold/explaining for 3 hours was told that they didn’t know what she was talking about and to call the insurance company. Then she would call the insurance company and they would direct her back to Obama Care. Being on hold for her became a regular thing.

One time, while on hold, she got hungry. She had been on hold 15 minutes and couldn’t wait anymore so she packed up our son in the car and headed about 10 minutes away to Crown Burger. She went inside, ordered and ate with our toddler and at the end of the meal they finally came back on. Seriously? She was probably on hold for at least two hours every time she tried to get anything resolved with a toddler to entertain as soon as they popped back onto the speaker phone.

It wasn’t until yesterday that we finally got everything resolved. 5 months of nagging, calling, waiting until finally getting the issue resolved. I totally get the hype of having great insurance for a low cost, but during these multiple phone calls we learned that we weren’t the only ones this was happening to. The people we were talking to were just as frustrated because they were getting phone call after frustrated phone call by angry, frustrated and even furious parents with children that they thought had coverage, but really had nothing.

What would they have done if our son had gotten so sick and we would have lost him? They were the ones to mess up, but yet we were the ones having to pay for it. The stress of the bills was hard on our wallets and our relationship. Money is always a hard thing to deal with and when the problem is out of your control it makes it more frustrating.

If I can get at least one person to learn from our experience and know that Obama Care isn’t worth it, I will be happy. Get your family the insurance they deserve and if you need coverage, let me know because I know a guy that is great.