Aside from the cost, we’ve encountered two show-stopping ACA problems:
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In 2014, we couldn’t sign up for ACA because our children might have qualified for Medicaid. ACA wouldn’t let us complete our 2014 enrollment until we enrolled or declined Medicaid coverage for our children. This created a Catch-22 that kept us from enrolling in the ACA at all. We didn’t hear from NC’s Dept. of Health and Human Services until June of 2014, six months after ACA open enrollment ended we were compelled to purchase insurance privately.
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In 2016, we attempted to purchase health insurance from Covenant through the Marketplace. When we got our paperwork from them, we saw that they listed our 10-year old son as the primary person on the policy. We called Covenant and they said it was a problem with the way the data was transmitted from the Marketplace. We called the Marketplace and they said everything was fine on their end, and Covenant needed to fix it on the other end. Lather, rinse, repeat. Ultimately neither party would take responsibility for this, but both parties confirmed that it would not be ok to have a 10-year-old as the primary on the policy. So we purchased our policy privately again.
And of course in the background there’s the issue that we have had to change policies every year, and consequently we’ve had to change physicians every year. There’s also the issue that in 2017, there is only one ACA insurer left in North Carolina: Blue Cross Blue Shield. I can’t point to a positive experience I’ve had with them.
