Health insurance, year 3
So last year I blogged at length about a multi-day struggle with the MNSure website, hours spent on hold, and the kindness of the customer and tech support people when one finally got to them.
This year was much easier, but not without minor drama. I got through the application for financial assistance in one go and was promptly informed that we were eligible for a monthly subsidy. Then I went and looked at the plans. I knew that premiums had gone up, but hadn't really assimilated that plans had started to go floppy and were weird and difficult. I ignored co-insurance last year and just got a plan with co-pays and a reasonable deductible. This was through UCare, but unfortunately, I couldn't just renew that plan, because my clinic and pharmacy are no longer among their providers. Next year I might rethink this, but this year I simply refuse to change my clinic because a bunch of revolting corporations are trying to squeeze every penny out of what should be considered a public good rather than a business opportunity.
I spent about eight hours on the computer Friday; the application took less than half an hour, so the rest was expended comparing plans til my eyes started going around in my head, with pauses to rant at whoever happened to come by, whether in person or in email. It's just insane that a plan rated Gold that costs, before subsidies. more than a thousand dollars a month, should have 40% coinsurance. The deductibles are crazy too. I am also very, very tired of being required to predict the future, which is impossible for self-employed people with a patchwork of income, and then sternly warned that there are penalties for not telling the truth. There is no truth! It hasn't happened yet!
I finally, reluctantly, settled on a sucky plan for a price that made my heart sink but that didn't seem completely insane. It's twice what we were paying last year, after the subsidy. I told the website that I wanted to enroll in the plan. I got a rather plaintive page that said that something had gone wrong. I signed out and logged in again, and ended up in the same place I had landed last year: my application was listed as pending and there was no way out of the page where that information was; and yet, since I already had a completed application, there was also no other path to enrollment.
I decided to give them the weekend and see if things settled. In the meantime, for the second time this year, our main landline number died on us. In August this precipitated a nightmare in which CenturyLink was understaffed and couldn't send a technician for a week. When he got there, he didn't fix anything, and they'd given him a wrong version of my cell phone number, so he didn't call either. He also didn't ring the doorbell; he just left, and the website then informed us that our problem had been resolved. That eventually got dealt with by Raphael's explaining the situation in chat with tech support in a way that I don't have the personality to support. The tech people, abashed by Raphael, got hold of the local office manager, and she called and said that somebody would be out about two days later. This person had the right number and was reasonably competent. He said the line from the cross street was bad, and he fixed it. He got a bit muddled over the legacy wiring in the outside box, but David fixed that quite quickly.
This time, I got on the website to request a repair ticket, but they were having technical difficulties. I had to make an appointment in chat; to my relief, it was for two days hence rather than the next week. It was already dark when Raphael informed me that the landline was out, so in the morning I dutifully went out with a telephone and checked for dial tones. We have two lines but only give out one number, and the one everybody knew to call, naturally, was the one that had died on us. There were two dial tones, though one was scratchy. I went in and informed David of this situation, and he told me to cancel the repair appointment, since one will be charged $95 if CenturyLink comes out and discovers that the problem is not with their side of the divide. Over the weekend, while grading finals for the course he taught this semester and going to several parties, David took apart the inside wiring and traced the deadness of the line back to the wall. On Sunday morning he went outside and checked for dial tones. There was now just one. I got on the CenturyLink website, which was working now, and made a repair appointment for this morning, with a 10:15 am to 2:15 pm window. This is a little early for me, but I could manage it.
At 8:51 this morning, my cell phone rang. It was the technician; he was on his way. I lay down for a moment and suddenly the doorbell was ringing and the technician was here. He didn't, as it turned out, need me for anything, but I got dressed blearily, without showering, and went out just in case. Then I went back to bed in my clothes. Then I got up and fed the cats, since they were puzzled and excited by my having dressed and gone downstairs but not fed them. After they ate Saffron came and purred and snuggled with me, but several times the technician's equipment made warbling noises that she interpreted as possible prey outside the window; he also made some banging noises that required her to rush to the window, treading heavily on my stomach as she went. I did sleep for a bit eventually, waking at more or less my usual time at 11:30.
I picked up the phone in my office and checked to see if things were back to normal. One dial tone. After a brief period of despair, I went and asked David if he'd had time to put everything back together yet, and he hadn't. When he did, it all worked fine.
Buoyed up by this news and by a very large cup of tea, I checked the status of my application in its little cul-de-sac -- still Pending, still immured -- and called MNSure customer service. I got through to them handily, but after poking around, the nice lady decided that I needed tech support. This involved being on hold for about an hour and a half. They have the same music as last year, but have varied it with little skits where people fall and hurt themselves but won't let anybody call an ambulance because they don't have health insurance; or they go to the ER but leave because they can't afford treatment and maybe it will heal on its own. I sympathize with these, but the repetition is a bit wearing.
Eventually I got another pleasant, if somewhat brisker, woman who fixed my application in less than fifteen minutes. My application was no longer in a dead end. There was now a link to enroll in health care plans. Before I did, I double-checked that UCare, HealthPartners, and Blue-All-the-Things don't list my clinic and pharmacy. Then I double-checked all the Medica plans (they are plentiful as blackberries). I found another network that included my clinic as other than a chiropractic specialty, but the plans weren't really any better and my eyes were starting to go around again, so I just chose what I hoped was the best plan for our circumstances insofar as we even know what those are, and closed the deal.
This is still better than no health insurance. It's just stupidly worse than giving everybody decent health care and having done with all this nonsense.
Pamela
This year was much easier, but not without minor drama. I got through the application for financial assistance in one go and was promptly informed that we were eligible for a monthly subsidy. Then I went and looked at the plans. I knew that premiums had gone up, but hadn't really assimilated that plans had started to go floppy and were weird and difficult. I ignored co-insurance last year and just got a plan with co-pays and a reasonable deductible. This was through UCare, but unfortunately, I couldn't just renew that plan, because my clinic and pharmacy are no longer among their providers. Next year I might rethink this, but this year I simply refuse to change my clinic because a bunch of revolting corporations are trying to squeeze every penny out of what should be considered a public good rather than a business opportunity.
I spent about eight hours on the computer Friday; the application took less than half an hour, so the rest was expended comparing plans til my eyes started going around in my head, with pauses to rant at whoever happened to come by, whether in person or in email. It's just insane that a plan rated Gold that costs, before subsidies. more than a thousand dollars a month, should have 40% coinsurance. The deductibles are crazy too. I am also very, very tired of being required to predict the future, which is impossible for self-employed people with a patchwork of income, and then sternly warned that there are penalties for not telling the truth. There is no truth! It hasn't happened yet!
I finally, reluctantly, settled on a sucky plan for a price that made my heart sink but that didn't seem completely insane. It's twice what we were paying last year, after the subsidy. I told the website that I wanted to enroll in the plan. I got a rather plaintive page that said that something had gone wrong. I signed out and logged in again, and ended up in the same place I had landed last year: my application was listed as pending and there was no way out of the page where that information was; and yet, since I already had a completed application, there was also no other path to enrollment.
I decided to give them the weekend and see if things settled. In the meantime, for the second time this year, our main landline number died on us. In August this precipitated a nightmare in which CenturyLink was understaffed and couldn't send a technician for a week. When he got there, he didn't fix anything, and they'd given him a wrong version of my cell phone number, so he didn't call either. He also didn't ring the doorbell; he just left, and the website then informed us that our problem had been resolved. That eventually got dealt with by Raphael's explaining the situation in chat with tech support in a way that I don't have the personality to support. The tech people, abashed by Raphael, got hold of the local office manager, and she called and said that somebody would be out about two days later. This person had the right number and was reasonably competent. He said the line from the cross street was bad, and he fixed it. He got a bit muddled over the legacy wiring in the outside box, but David fixed that quite quickly.
This time, I got on the website to request a repair ticket, but they were having technical difficulties. I had to make an appointment in chat; to my relief, it was for two days hence rather than the next week. It was already dark when Raphael informed me that the landline was out, so in the morning I dutifully went out with a telephone and checked for dial tones. We have two lines but only give out one number, and the one everybody knew to call, naturally, was the one that had died on us. There were two dial tones, though one was scratchy. I went in and informed David of this situation, and he told me to cancel the repair appointment, since one will be charged $95 if CenturyLink comes out and discovers that the problem is not with their side of the divide. Over the weekend, while grading finals for the course he taught this semester and going to several parties, David took apart the inside wiring and traced the deadness of the line back to the wall. On Sunday morning he went outside and checked for dial tones. There was now just one. I got on the CenturyLink website, which was working now, and made a repair appointment for this morning, with a 10:15 am to 2:15 pm window. This is a little early for me, but I could manage it.
At 8:51 this morning, my cell phone rang. It was the technician; he was on his way. I lay down for a moment and suddenly the doorbell was ringing and the technician was here. He didn't, as it turned out, need me for anything, but I got dressed blearily, without showering, and went out just in case. Then I went back to bed in my clothes. Then I got up and fed the cats, since they were puzzled and excited by my having dressed and gone downstairs but not fed them. After they ate Saffron came and purred and snuggled with me, but several times the technician's equipment made warbling noises that she interpreted as possible prey outside the window; he also made some banging noises that required her to rush to the window, treading heavily on my stomach as she went. I did sleep for a bit eventually, waking at more or less my usual time at 11:30.
I picked up the phone in my office and checked to see if things were back to normal. One dial tone. After a brief period of despair, I went and asked David if he'd had time to put everything back together yet, and he hadn't. When he did, it all worked fine.
Buoyed up by this news and by a very large cup of tea, I checked the status of my application in its little cul-de-sac -- still Pending, still immured -- and called MNSure customer service. I got through to them handily, but after poking around, the nice lady decided that I needed tech support. This involved being on hold for about an hour and a half. They have the same music as last year, but have varied it with little skits where people fall and hurt themselves but won't let anybody call an ambulance because they don't have health insurance; or they go to the ER but leave because they can't afford treatment and maybe it will heal on its own. I sympathize with these, but the repetition is a bit wearing.
Eventually I got another pleasant, if somewhat brisker, woman who fixed my application in less than fifteen minutes. My application was no longer in a dead end. There was now a link to enroll in health care plans. Before I did, I double-checked that UCare, HealthPartners, and Blue-All-the-Things don't list my clinic and pharmacy. Then I double-checked all the Medica plans (they are plentiful as blackberries). I found another network that included my clinic as other than a chiropractic specialty, but the plans weren't really any better and my eyes were starting to go around again, so I just chose what I hoped was the best plan for our circumstances insofar as we even know what those are, and closed the deal.
This is still better than no health insurance. It's just stupidly worse than giving everybody decent health care and having done with all this nonsense.
Pamela