Cover Oregon website and Health Care Debacle as seen from a Real Couple

From the Oregonlive.com website, Cover Oregon article comments http://www.oregonlive.com/health/index.ssf/2014/01/cover_oregon_health_exchange_f.html#incart_most-comments
commentor alpinista_pnw comments/posts on January 21, 2014

Good to see the coverage of this debacle extend beyond the "troubled website". While the website is troubled indeed, the problems are far deeper and wider than information technology. The lack of competent oversight, the bloated scope of Cover Oregon, the political infighting, wasted tax dollars, fuzzy enrollment numbers etc., etc. that this article points out is astounding! And then to add misery to insult, the poor design of the paper application and its non-standard nomenclature (taxable adjustment?) and screwy method for calculating net business income, have caused a plethora of errors in processing, and pain, frustration, and delays!

Speaking from personal experience, my husband and I are self-employed and have been paying over $1k per month for insurance since I left my corporate job a few years ago. When we realized we may be eligible for a modest tax credit we applied to Cover Oregon (via paper application) in November, well before the deadline. On Dec. 27th, four days before our then-current plan was terminating, we received a recorded voice message from CO saying that “one of your family members has qualified for the Oregon Health Plan.” Bewildered, (because thankfully our income is way above the Medicaid limit) I started calling Cover Oregon, and after many, many hours on hold, finally reached a live person on Jan. 15th. Meanwhile, my husband (and just my husband mind you) received a welcome letter and insurance card for Medicaid. Turns out Cover Oregon used income and expense figures for just the month of Jan. 2014 to calculate eligibility, which is the month we happen to make our maximum annual IRA contributions, putting our “modified, adjusted, gross income” in the negative for that month. Our annual income and expense, in the adjacent boxes, were ignored and not considered. “That’s just the way they do it..” the CO rep said. Ludicrous! Who would do it that way?! Is CO looking for any reason to dump people off to Medicaid to boost their enrollment numbers? And why we were reduced to a party of one in the hand-over to Medicaid remains a mystery. Current situation is: We believe one of us has Medicaid and one of us has nothing. We are in Cover Oregon’s “reprocessing queue” to correctly calculate our income, using annual numbers, not January's, and have not heard back. We cannot get through to Medicaid – their phone system is so overrun a recording just says to call later. Hmm..wonder why they’re so busy. The only bright side is that my husband, who used to be an advocate for government-run, single-payer, healthcare is now like a deer in the headlights! I could have never been so convincing on my own!

Oregonian: please continue to shine the spotlight on this so that voters know what a wasteful mess this is! Publish the true enrollment numbers on your front page. Get an interview with Kitzhaber and ask the tough questions!

Deer in the Headlights, yes indeed. Seems like until it happens to you personally, an emotionally motivated voting person, will not listen,hear,understand,fathom truth being told to them. (ie his wife saying "I could have never been so convincing on my own!" ) A government-run, single-payer, healthcare is not very good for you! Don't vote into Government office people that support Obamacare or single-payer healthcare!

So how much farther does this Cover Oregon Health Care have to go, before Govenor Kitzhaber shuts "Cover Oregon exchange" shutdown? Welcome Comments Debate below.

Please consider perusing through the other comments listed at the Oregonlive.com website article.
Other Websites
Moe Lane has many posts about Cover Oregon at MoeLane.com Cover Oregon Posts
Cover Oregon Website, Is it Working yet?? Who Says So?? Not Ready QA moans!
Other Pithy comments from Oregonlive.com website.
Girl from the Pearl
7 Hours Ago
Is this disaster due to government incompetence or government corruption or both?
Cromulent
9 Hours Ago
Did you vote for Obama? Twice? Then congratulations, because you *did* build this!

alpinista_pnw
1 Hour Ago
Eagles: If you're going to take the time to respond to my post, please read it first so that your response is relevant. As I said, our annual "modified adjusted gross income" (their term) is way above the Medicaid limit. We were dumped to Medicaid because, according to the CO rep, they calculated eligibility based on January income and expenses only, as opposed to the annual figures listed right there in next column. January MAGI was low because we make our annual IRA contributions in that month, which is one of the allowed "adjustments". Looking at a one month snapshot is a ridiculous way to calculate eligibility for self-employed people. We do not qualify for Medicaid, nor do we want it. We are now ostensibly in the reprocessing queue with CO and are obviously not alone there.

BeavsnDucks
Yesterday
this is such an embarrassment

200 million for a program that takes phone calls and fills out forms manually

I am sick and tired of the clowns that run our government.

Proven fact:

there is over a dozen companies in portland and Seattle that could build the site with all of the trimmings for under 5 Million dollars and in 12 months that can scale to tens of thousands of users simultaneously.

How smart is our government? Who is dumb enough to hire oracle. I dont need to pay for them to have lavish parties with Aerosmith.

Just a joke and liberals dont care one bit. They have no idea how to balance a budget or to build and manage a business model. liberals are killing america let along oregon.

Oregon is run by libs that could care less if we spend a billion on a website that gives free welfare. Libs want to be taken care of for everything.

just sick!

8% guaranteed PERS and a prius

both laughing stocks of the united states

Luther Kong
Yesterday
Two words to always keep in mind here. John Kitzhaber. Cover Oregon was his baby. The officials who oversaw it were his appointees. John Kitzhaber himself was warned that Cover Oregon was likely going to fail long before it did. At least one Salem lawmaker told John Kitzhaber that Cover Oregon was on track to fail. When John Kitzhaber tried to deny that fact, and was presented with evidence to the contrary by the KATU/2 investigative reporting team, John Kitzhaber stalked out of that videotaped interview and has not given another on the subject since.

John Kitzhaber. Remember those two words every time the subject of the $100 mllion Cover Oregon failure comes up. Remember those two words every time talk of John Kitzhaber running for a fourth term of managerial incompetence comes up. Two words. Cover Oregon. Two words. John Kitzhaber. They go together like a pair of handcuffs.