that has such a frustrating system for applying for a subsidy for health insurance?
I am self-employed, and health insurance for myself and my spouse costs more than our rent each month. The promise of help paying for our insurance is my main personal reason for my interest in Obamacare. I can't keep silent about the difficulties that I have experienced trying to sign up.
My experience trying to sign up for a health insurance subsidy began with the fact that the Hawaii Health Connector website was glitchy and wouldn’t accept my on-line application. Instead, on November 12 I went to the local assistance office to apply in person, bringing all my identification and paperwork. I filled out the application, and was told that my application would be reviewed and I would get a letter in a week. I didn’t get any letter for two weeks, so I went back to the office. I was told that a letter had been mailed to me a week earlier (the letter never arrived), and that I was not eligible for Medicaid. This was a big surprise to me, because I didn’t want to apply for Medicaid, I wanted to apply for a subsidy to help pay for my insurance. I was given a copy of the letter, which turned out to be very important, but I wasn’t told anything else about the status of my application, or what I needed to do to apply for a subsidy.
By this time, the Hawaii Health Connector website was supposedly fixed, so I tried to apply on line again. The system still wouldn’t accept my application. I called the help line (it was December 3, and I had been trying to sign up since October 15). The person with whom I spoke informed me that she couldn’t find my application in the system, and told me to try applying again. I was able to get an application filed that day, but once again, I heard nothing further about it. On December 10, I called the help line again, and was told, for the first time, that my application was automatically treated as an application for Medicaid, and if I wanted to apply for a subsidy, I first had to be rejected for Medicaid.
I was also told, for the first time, that applications for a subsidy couldn’t be completed on line, but must be done by telephone. A nice person took my application over the telephone that day. Fortunately, I had the letter that I had been given from the local office, which I faxed to the Health Connector headquarters. The people at the Health Connector help line were very courteous and patient, but the system keeps going down, so it took three days to get my data entered and generate a confirmation number. Unfortunately, the system is currently down again, so I still haven’t been notified if I am eligible for a subsidy, and I haven’t been able to shop for insurance yet.
Does anybody know if the Affordable Care Act requires an individual to apply for Medicaid before applying for an insurance subsidy, or is it just the State of Hawaii that has that requirement? I cannot believe that I couldn’t simply bypass the application for Medicaid (for which I am not eligible, based on my expected income) and apply for the subsidy directly.