Sobbin’ John
Up until now I wondered what part of the Affordable Care Act was it that John Boehner doesn’t understand. You’d think he know what an Act is, so I figured that wasn’t it. Care seemed to be the culprit because he doesn’t.
But now we know for a fact that it’s the Affordable he’s having problems with.
In his attempt to make a point, Boehner went online to sign up for the Affordable Care Act.
He whines, whines, whines about how difficult it is to sign up.
“Earlier this afternoon, I sat down to try and enroll in the DC exchange under the president’s health care law,” he wrote. “Like many Americans, my experience was pretty frustrating. After putting in my personal information, I received an error message. I was able to work past that, but when I went to actually sign up for coverage, I got this ‘internal server error’ screen”:
We are so impressed that he can use a computer. Well, get a grip, John.
A writer for Salon got on the ACA site and pretended to be you. What he found is that you’d save a boat load of money even being a 604 year old man who is a chain smoker.
If he’d decided to enroll in Ohio, his options would be generally cheaper. The plans available in Butler County, where he resides, start at just $203.51 a month for a 64-year-old, or 1.1 percent of his annual income.
They have all the numbers here.
Apparently, a day later he got through just fine and purchased a plan. He did not mention the great savings. Of course not.
Thanks to Elizabeth Moon for the heads up.
Imagine a chain smoking, orange-skinned 64 yr old man can qualify for health insurance and it’s affordable!
Sounds like mission accomplished to me.
1Now can we move past this “scandal” like the previous teapot tempests and get down to governing?
And just think, in one more year that sucker qualifies for Medicare.
2I’m on Medicare and I am not allowed to sign up for affordable care. He has the best insurance money can buy,why even try. He wants frustrated,he should pay attention to Dems who are tired of a rw congress that could work but routinely refuses to. god it must be so hard to be a completely clueless wingnut that is waaaaayyyyyyyyy overpaid for doing nothing.
3Maybe if all these yahoos (Speakers, their staff, other gov’t officials without reason to be “practicing” on the site, media darlings, etc.) would stay the heck off the site and quit inputting fake information or trying to enroll when they’re ineligible (like Boehner), the system would work better. I’ve always heard “garbage in garbage out” with reference to computer systems and I think the Repubs are deliberately sabotaging the system. Not only that, but if you have employer-paid health insurance, why are you on the site? You’re also not eligible. Too bad there’s not some way to program the site (thru IRS records maybe? only half kidding) so that people who are ineligible to participate would not be able to get into the enrollment section.
4Last night my husband rushed in and said, “Boehner signed up for ACA!” Hooboy. ’nuff said.
5Message to Mr. Orange-Ade. You think the ACA website is hell to work with? Try the website my bank ginned up! Or Amazon when it is feeling persnickety and won’t let you into the last page to submit your order and there’s no longer any 800 number to call. Hell, if you find life to be this hard, go yee unto the desert and become a hermit, particularly the kind that sits on top of a tower and is fed by ravens.
There!
6One way Publicans are sabotaging the ACA is by so many GOP governors refusing to take federal money to set up a system in their own states. Not only does this deprive their states’ poorer residents of the chance to get affordable health care, it means those people have to pile on to the federal site– and heavy volume is a big part of the problem.
Despite that, numbers of people who have signed up keep rising.
7AMEN. I agree: there oughta be some way to keep folks who are ineligible for signing on. Looks like social security numbers or something like that would work. Reminds me of the election in 2008 when the GOPers went and voted for Hillary to screw things up. Yes, you folks up north, that did happen.
8Am I wrong in believing Congress persons have to get their insurance through the ACA? I thought the Repubs insisted on that hoping it would kill. Maybe I should Google it.
9I couldn’t care less about Boehner. But y’all need to open your eyes and ears about ACA. I tried every night for over a month to get through online and was consistently stuck in the same ‘error message’ loop. My insurance plan was cancelled and the one replacing it is much more expensive. I finally applied via phone, was promised I’d receive a letter in four to five business days informing me what the tax credit/subsidy will be, two weeks later still no letter. Currently I cannot get anywhere on the site because the original online application I started won’t let me in to check on the progress of the second via phone application. The original application was supposed to be cleared out in that same four to five working days but nothing’s happened on that front either. During this time I was also informed by the non-profit I work for that my hours will be drastically cut in order to be compliant with ACA. I’ve waited four years to get some financial relief and decent actual healthcare. But here’s where I stand: having to pay more for health insurance and now not having enough money to pay for it with pretty much no hope of ever getting through this quagmire. Truthfully, I’m at a point where, irony of all ironies, I will have to go without insurance and just pay the fine. There are some VERY SERIOUS flaws with ACA. Within the next few months there will be more and more reports of people losing many hours of work, which means losing real money. If there aren’t some profound real life changes to ACA by June, the Democrats will face a bloodbath in November. I am a life-long Democrat but this is the reality out there. Pooh-poohing and scoffing at the critics is ignorant folly, potentially setting us all back for years. Instead, we need to be providing and implementing workable solutions pronto. Doing nothing but ridiculing GOPers (which is pretty easy to do, not to mention enormously amusing) won’t help any of us. Thanks for letting me voice my experiences and concerns.
10Rhea, absolutely right about GOP guvners screwing their own constituents by resisting the money that would implement ACA in their own states. I told this to the guy I work with, a lifelong Repub, and he just couldn’t believe it. I also told him to get on the state website and see what happened. He is so computer phobic that he decided to believe me! Boy! What it takes . . . !
11Marge Wood, we northerners had the opposite Repug ploy up here. My boss, a rwnj,
12gleefully recounted to me how they were all changing their registration for the presidential primary to vote for Obama, cause no way was a black guy going to get elected president and Hillary might just have a chance. Then they all changed back to the dark side and watched their worst nightmare come true.
Worked out just right, I’d say.
Jan, Jan, Jan: The Congresscritters voting to eliminate one of their bennies? Never. It was their staff that they were going to throw to the Obamacare wolves.
13How does sagging flesh affect ones ability to think? In John’s case, a large amount.
14Baby Boomer … I think I’d be back on the phone, talking to someone about your app taken by phone and seeing about clearing your app off the website. And if I didn’t get any satisfaction, I’d be calling them back until you got what you needed. Your’s is definitely not a positive pitch for the ACA, but keep after it and, hopefully, you’ll have success and see about getting a different plan, if you can, that will cost you less.
15A) Definite Sabotage going on by some very deep pockets on the right – Hacker Hipsters are rolling in the Dough right now,B) Any employer that cuts back Hours to “Comply” with ACA is just using it as an excuse to pump up their bottom line….I’ve heard this repeatedly, most of whom don’t have enough employee’s to even matter, and those that do should be taken to the woodshed for using this as an excuse. Employer based Healthcare is part of a PAYMENT PACKAGE – if they supply Healthcare, the pay less – IF THEY DON’T then that should be reflected in bumped up wages – Yes, I know that in this greedy world that never happens, but folks, the Mamon road has brought us where we are today, and until we start to call it out and get on another road, it’s only gonna get uglier…
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