Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Harry's $407,000 Bind: Liar or Victim

On the one hand, we know that Harry Reid considers all reports of ObamaTax problems to be lies.

On the other, there's this little problem for Harry:

"Basich, 62, bought a plan through the state’s Nevada Health Link insurance exchange in the fall ... Yet the Las Vegan is stranded in a no-man’s-land where no carrier claims him"

Mt B claims that he attempted to sign up for a new ObamaPlan on October 1, but that it took him until mid-November to enroll in a plan that would become effective January 1.

Except: the folks that run the Silver State's Exchange, Xerox, claim his plan was really effective as of March 1. Which wouldn't necessarily be a problem (beyond some premium refunds), except for this small, um, bump in the road:

"[O]n Dec. 31 ... 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."

Well, darn!

He's been working closely with his agent, Tamar Burch, and has even called upon his Senator, the aforementioned Mr Reid, for help. For his part, the esteemed Senator has vowed to help (although one might question his commitment, considering he must certainly believe Mr B a liar).

For its part, Xerox seems to be pulling out all the stops:

First, it tried to put him with a different carrier than the one he'd actually selected. When that didn't work, they redoubled their efforts by  promptly calling in the lawyers and clamming up.

Perfectly understandable, don't you think?

As it stands, Mr B is facing almost half a million dollars in unpaid medical bills and uncertainty as to when (or even if) they'll be paid and he'll have coverage.

The good news, of course, is that this is obviously a one-off, isolated event.

Wait, what?

Uh-oh:

His agent reports that "of nearly 200 Branch Benefits Consultants client sign ups via Nevada Health Link, only 5 percent have gone through problem-free. More than 20 customers have the same plan-selection issue as Basich." In addition, she reports "widespread enrollment problems, including frequent website error messages; inaccurate federal subsidy calculations; payments missing in the system despite clients’ canceled checks; and wrong effective coverage dates."

And that's just Nevada. What about the other 57 states?

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