About 25% of HealthCare.gov Applications Have Errors 157
itwbennett writes "An estimated one in four user applications sent from HealthCare.gov to insurance providers have errors introduced by the website, an official with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said during a press briefing Friday. The errors include missing forms, duplicate forms and incorrect information in the applications, such as wrong information about an applicant's marital status, said Julie Bataille, communications director for HHS Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). While the software bugs leading to the errors have largely been fixed, as many as 10 percent of insurance applications may still have errors and consumers who have used HealthCare.gov to buy insurance and have concerns that their applications haven't been processed or have errors should contact their insurers, Bataille said."
Re:Data In, Garbage Out (Score:2, Interesting)
Just don't depend on actually getting any money out from the religious health care pools. Unlike actual insurance companies, they have no legal obligation to pay at all. They also tend to happily take your 'donation' each month, but when you actually need to make a claim they'll decide your behavior is too sinful and kick you out. The main insurance industry is quite dodgy enough when it comes to finding excuses to avoid paying out - religious 'cost sharing' agencies are even worse.
Re:Data In, Garbage Out (Score:0, Interesting)
Republicans are in tough situation. (Score:2, Interesting)
The root cause of the problem is that Republicans dominate very small states with very large percentage of poor people. For example South Carolina had about 150K people already eligible for medicaid but were unaware of it. Even though the Republicans refused to expand medicare, the medicare rolls are expected to swell by 150K, because they are just finding out that they are actually eligible, and if they don't enroll for free healthcare, they would end up paying a fine! There are another 350K people who would know that they are within 400% of the poverty level, eligible for subsidies, and the Governor refused to give them access to that money. The hospitals and providers are going to lose about a billion dollars of federal money. Romney won that state by a margin of 2.2%. NC has 4.7 million registered voters, Romney's margin in raw votes is just 100K. If the potential loss of medical coverage or the possibility of getting subsidy impels a fraction of this 500K who are not already voting Democrat to register to vote, or actually show up to vote or switch from R to D, that would be disastrous to the Republicans.
If a dilettante like me crunches numbers like this, the politicians have at least semi or deci Nate Silvers in their pay roll. They know what is coming down the pike. Sure you could decry it as a simple vote getting ploy by the Democrats. And you could rail about the unfunded expansion and the effect it is going to have in the deficits etc etc. You could shout till cow comes home, "if people vote themselves benefits without worrying about the costs, Democracy will die". But if Republicans do not find a way to pacify that section of the population, none of these intellectual arguments are going to sway the people who are sick and tired of being sick and tired.
Re:Don't use the website (Score:2, Interesting)
The "Just Lie" bit was a tongue-in-cheek swat at how the NSA lied to congress and nothing happened.
I'm paying less than a thousand dollars for insurance per year. This doesn't include dental (I have a dentist buddy that does work for free) however, and my 2 children are going to be on medicaid (free). So the plan is really just for my wife and I. No lie, we're broke and the government has set things up to where rich folks are paying for the medical insurance of the poor.
Re:They seem to have their priorities correct (Score:3, Interesting)
According to the Boston Globe this morning, Massachusetts' (you know the state that was the model for the PPACA) Health Connector website has not enrolled a single person since it was revamped to support Obamacare at a cost of $69 million. The entire infrastructure to support the PPACA is apparently riddled with problems that impact not only healthcare.gov but the sites created by states that choose to implement their own. In Massachusetts, 100,000 people have been told their insurance which was in compliance with the state's Minimum Credible Coverage standard aren't good enough now and they need to choose a new health insurance through the non-functional site as the Governor Patrick's administration is not allowing them to remain on their existing policies.