You can check in, but they do everything they can to keep you from checking out.
A Missouri citizen had her preferred insurance coverage canceled out from under her by Obamacare. She was forced by circumstance into the ObamaMart, where she got coverage for $950/mo (that’s $11,400 each and every year, for those of you following along at home).
After that, she found a better plan with coverage that better suited her needs on what’s left of the private market, and she tried to sign up. No dice; the insurer told her she’d have to cancel her Obamacare policy first (not allowed to buy two policies from two different stores, apparently).
Cancel an Obamacare plan? Hah. Wolves have easier times escaping from traps.
- the citizen tried ObamaMart’s Help line, to be kept on hold “literally…for several hours a day”
- multiple attempts, with no luck; on to ObamaMart’s online chat facility
- sent back to the “Help” line where, still, the pseudo-helpers on the ObamaMart end of the line only would read from a script that had no checklist items for canceling plans
- despite her efforts, a $950 premium was withdrawn from her account
- finally getting through ObamaMart’s “Help” facility to another bureaucratic layer, the bureaucrat inhabiting that cubicle told her cancellations are handled by a “special department”
- asked how to contact that “special department,” the bureaucrat claimed, “I’m not allowed to tell you that”
- drove to Kansas City, hoping her prospective private market insurer could help her get rid of this ObamaMart yoke
- insurer succeeded in getting the ObamaMart plan canceled—after a total of six weeks from start to finish
When Fox News asked HHS what the proper procedures are for canceling an ObamaMart policy, the spokesman just said to talk to the hand:
Consumers should call the Marketplace consumer call center for assistance at 1-800-318-2596.
And the run-around takes another lap.
No word on whether she got her $950 back. Probably not, though; that’s just part of President Barack Obama’s “spread the wealth around” mandate.