Obamacare, Here I Come

Much to my surprise (I didn't see this one coming), it turns out that I am one of those people I've been hearing about on the news who've had their health-care insurance cancelled by their carrier.  

For the past two years, while I've been self-employed, I've had a private insurance policy from Blue Cross/Blue Shield.  It wasn't a great policy, but it was affordable ($300/month for the first year, then raised to $350/month for the second year) and protected me from catastrophic expenses.  

I never got a cancellation letter, but I did notice that I didn't get my monthly payment bill in the mail.  I went on line and didn't see anything suggesting that my account was expiring, but it wouldn't accept my attempts to pay on line.  After a long series of follow-up phone calls and frustrating touch-tone menus, I finally got hold of someone who told me that I had been sent a renewal offer, but since I hadn't responded in time, my policy was cancelled.  I told her that I never saw a renewal offer, but then realized that I was going to get nowhere arguing with someone working the information desk on a Sunday afternoon.

I went through my stack of old mail, and found something from Blue Cross that I had thought was just another one of their frequent promotional mailings, and in fact it did say that if I wanted to continue my coverage into 2014, my rates would be going up by $70 a month, and I had to respond by November 25th. The letter was dated November 15th, and probably didn't arrive here until the 20th.  No reminders, emails, or follow-up warnings.  It's almost like they didn't want me to renew, but didn't want to be the ones to say "We're dropping you."  I can understand - I've used roughly the same strategy to get out of romantic relationships in the past.

So that left me with the one obvious option - I went on line to healthcare.gov and signed up for an Obamacare policy.  Despite what you may have heard in the news, the web site worked fine and it probably took me less than 15 minutes to log in, set up an account, select a policy, and sign up, and I've already heard back from the provider, Humana, so the information successfully got to the back end as well.  With dental insurance included, it will cost me $100/month more than my old policy, or $450/month, but it is a better policy, with lower deductibles and out-of-pockets expenses.  However, it comes at a time when I can least afford another $100/month expense.  Even as much as I'm struggling right now financially, I still don't qualify for any assistance or subsidies, so that should make me feel a little better about myself (hey, I'm not as bad off as all those people who have qualified!).

Here's the real catch, though - coverage doesn't start until February 1, so I'm not covered for the month of January, right in time for cold and flu season.  I'll have to manage to go through an entire month without an injury or major disease, which hasn't been a problem for at least four years now, but you know Murphy's Law.  No car accidents or heart attacks until February 1, please.

In retrospect, this probably wasn't the best month to have signed up for that chain-saw juggling course.