With the clock ticking, Covered California mails flawed letters to 114,000 households

Hot Air ^ | December 18, 2013 | Guy Benson

[2ndDivisionVet]

This shouldn’t be a problem. I mean, the cut-off for selecting a plan in order to be covered in January is five whole days from now (even as some insurers are complying with the administration’s menacing “suggestion” to extend payment deadlines):

Adding to consumer confusion ahead of a major enrollment deadline, California’s health insurance exchange sent flawed eligibility notices to nearly 114,000 households due to a computer error. The Covered California exchange said the letters sent from Nov. 22 to Dec. 7 had blank spaces or missing information on people’s eligibility for insurance or federal premium subsidies. “The letters would say you are eligible for Covered California, but you are ineligible for blank,” said exchange spokeswoman Anne Gonzales. “It seemed to contradict whether the enrollee was eligible. It was confusing to people.” Ben Amante of Costa Mesa received one of the letters last weekend and said he couldn’t understand what it meant for his insurance application for himself and his daughter. ”One short paragraph said you’re qualified and the next one says you’re not qualified,” Amante said. “Insurance companies are looking a lot better now after dealing with Covered California.” … The inaccurate letters triggered increased calls to the state’s three service centers, which are already straining to handle high volume. The average wait time topped 36 minutes at last count.

And who doesn’t have more than half an hour to sit on hold during this famously non-busy time of year? More than one million Californians have been stripped of their existing coverage thanks to Obamacare; the state says it has enrolled 159,000 people in Obamacare through its exchange, as of “early December.” You do the math. Over on the East Coast, another insurer has announced that it will not renew coverage for roughly 100,000 New Jerseyans whose individual market plans do not comply with the new law’s mandates:

Another 100,000 people in New Jersey with health plans that do not meet the standards of the Affordable Care Act will be shopping for coverage next year. AmeriHealth of New Jersey, which covers more than 100,000 people in individual and small-group health plans, announced Tuesday that it will not renew 2013 health plans that do not comply with the new health care law next year. That brings the total of New Jersey residents with individual and small-group plans that can’t be renewed next year to more than 680,000.

Thoughts, Mr. President?

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)

This claim has now been ranked as the “lie of the year” by both Politifact and the Washington Post. If only the media had been sufficiently skeptical back in 2010, this entire mess may have been avoided. They weren’t, for reasons they’re willing to cop to now that Their Precious has been safely re-elected. Friendly reminder: It’s going to get worse.

[Tilted Irish Kilt]

"This claim has now been ranked as the “lie of the year” by both Politifact and the Washington Post. "

Can we claim it to be the 'WHOPPER' of the last 5 years
since it was repeated , and RECORDED 39 times in front of the media !!

[lurk]

Listen gang, the folks working in the back rooms of the health care machine are ACORN members. Excellence and accuracy are not even words in the Vo Cab You Larry. Mmm Hmmm, thass whut om sayin’,