Below you’ll read the details of another Obamacare nightmare. This one, it appears, comes courtesy of dysfunctional back-end problems that have placed a triple bypass surgery recipient in an impossible and terrifying situation. We’ve written about the inevitability of well-meaning consumers checking all the boxes to obtain insurance, only to be sandbagged by logistical snafus when they desperately need the coverage they thought they had. Meet Larry Basich, whose kafkaesque ordeal is being reported in the Las Vegas Review-Journal:
The hospital bills are hitting Larry Basich’s mailbox. That would be OK if Basich had health insurance. But he doesn’t. Thing is, he should be covered. Basich, 62, bought a plan through the state’s Nevada Health Link insurance exchange in the fall. He’s been paying monthly premiums since November. Yet the Las Vegan is stranded in a no-man’s-land where no carrier claims him, and his tab is mounting: Basich owes $407,000 for care received in January and February, when his policy was supposed to be in effect. Instead, he’s covered only for March and beyond. Basich has begged for weeks for help from the exchange and its contractor, Xerox. But Basich’s insurance broker said Xerox seems more interested in lawyering up and covering its hide than in working out Basich’s problems. Nor is Basich the only client facing plan-selection errors through the exchange, she added…
Basich said he began trying to enroll on Oct. 1, the day the exchange website went live. Like many consumers, he fought technical flaws during multiple sign-up attempts. In mid-November he finally got through and chose his plan…Basich paid his first premium on Nov. 21, and within days the exchange withdrew the $160.77 payment from his money-market savings account. Because Basich paid a month before the Dec. 23 deadline, his coverage was to begin Jan. 1. Weeks ticked by, but Basich received nothing to confirm he had insurance. Nevada Health Link kept telling him he was enrolled, but UnitedHealthcare said he wasn’t in their system. Basich’s predicament went critical on Dec. 31, when he had a heart attack. His treatment, which included a triple bypass on Jan. 3, resulted in $407,000 in medical bills in January and February that no insurer is covering.
Read more: Townhall
