Obamacare applicants get no treatment, insurance cards invalid

Photo: EPA

Patients all over America were told they would have to pay their bills in full if they couldn't prove they had insurance. Consumers face sticker-shock from medical costs under the new Obamacare system, made worse if they can't prove they're insured. As many as one-third of new enrollees' applications have seen problems with the government’s transmitting them to insurance companies.

Staff in a Vigrinia hospital are turning away sick people on a frigid Thursday morning because they can't determine whether their Obamacare insurance plans are in effect, same thing happens in Washington suburbs.

"They had no idea if my insurance was active or not!”, a coughing patient said on a way out of the hospital. She was leaving the building without getting a needed chest x-ray.

"The people in there told me that since I didn't have an insurance card, I would be billed for the whole cost of the x-ray,' the angry patient claimed. 'It's not fair – you know, I signed up last week like I was supposed to." The x-ray's cost, she was told, would likely account for more than $500.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius testified in a last month congressional hearing that the federal government can't say how many new enrollees have written checks for their first month's premiums.

"Some may have paid, some may have not",  she conceded.

It's unlikely that a valid insurance card would have changed the patients' fortunes, however.

The Obamacare system has suffered from a long list of setbacks since its October 1 rollout, starting with an inoperable website and ending with rampant uncertainty about whether Americans who enrolled are actually covered.

"We're telling consumers if they're not sure if they're enrolled they should call the insurer directly",  White House Press Secretary advised.

The press reported that because of computer glitches in the 'back end' of healthcare.gov, enrollment records for as many as one-third of new insurance customers were corrupted or otherwise contain errors.

Taking into consideration the Obama administration's latest claim that 2.1 million have signed up nationwide, that means: as many as 700,000 Americans might be naive to believe they have a current health insurance policy.

The insurance buyers who took the time to enroll but may not follow the daily flood of news about Obamacare, have the slightest idea why that all has to be so complicated.

President Obama has attracted widespread criticism due to his health care reform for promising that Americans who had set up their health plans would be allowed to keep them.

Doctors and health care specialists claim the patients who enrolled in Obamacare are frustrated, no one can promise them any certainty so far. 

Voice of Russia, The Daily Mail 
Read more: http://voiceofrussia.com/2014_01_05/Obamacare-applicants-get-no-treatment-insurance-cards-invalid-8529/