In spite of his best efforts, following all the rules and applying all necessary procedures, Nevada residents Larry Basich basically did not have a good experience with Obamacare, which cost him more than he expected.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal depicted in detail this man's ordeal purchasing insurance, and still for a very stressful period of time, he had no idea whether his medical expenses will be covered:
Thing is, he should be covered. Basich, 62, bought a plan through the state’s Nevada Health Link insurance exchange in the fall. He’s been paying monthly premiums since November.
Yet the Las Vegan is stranded in a no-man’s-land where no carrier claims him, and his tab is mounting: Basich owes $407,000 for care received in January and February, when his policy was supposed to be in effect. Instead, he’s covered only for March and beyond.
This scenario has repeated itself all too often with these state health insurance exchanges. Americans followed the advise (or rather, force) from the White House to seek out insurance.
Millions of people actually had no choice, since the Obamacare rollout pushed out many people's current insurance plans, the ones which President Obama promised that they could keep.
Basich struggled to enroll on line, and after more than a month, he found a plan and purchased it.
Then, just after the beginning of this year, the retired engineer need heart bypass surgery
By then, the insurance companies had seemingly bypassed him, as he had received no insurance card, even though money was withdrawn from his account every month to pay for his new health insurance plan.
More complications followed, as Basich's intended health insurance company initially had no record of his coverage, and then another company claimed to have him on their roster.
In this No Man's Land of "Who is covering me?" Basich was racking up medical bills, hitting over $400 thousand.
!["File:Brian]("http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/44/Brian_Sandoval_2010.jpg") |
| Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval |
Because of Las Vegas Review-Journal's report on Basich's controversy, the insurance company was pressured to cover all his costs retroactively. Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval and US Senator Harry Reid (the same Senator who called these horror stories "untrue") intervened to help the man.
Yet the stressed-out Nevada resident did not have a happy report to share about Obamacare:
“There’s been so much stress. It’s almost unbelievable that they could, through their ignorance, put me through this,” he said. “But in the end, I’ll be happy to not have to deal with this crap anymore. It will be such a great relief. It was just so much stress.”
and then
“If Xerox, if the state of Nevada, if Sandoval think this whole fight is over because they’re going to resolve my one issue, they need to rethink that, because my broker has more than 20 issues exactly like mine on her plate right now.”
Basich's outcomes were better than bad, although he termed the process of finding health insurance on line like "reaching the third level of Doom", the fact that there are at least twenty other cases similar to Basich's ordeal casts a pall rather than a light on Obamacare's legacy.
The retired engineer waited for months wondering if his health care expenses would be covered, even though he had paid the health insurance premiums for his Obamacare plan. When his circumstances grew more distressing, he had to reach out to the press, who pressured the insurance company, the Governor and Nevada, and one of Basich's US Senators to intervene. And there are least twenty other people facing similar circumstances with their health care?
That's just an estimate regarding how widespread the Obamacare heartache has hit Nevada residents, too. Would Senator Reid call them liars, too?
' I cannot imagine Nevada residents, struggling to work, raise their families, or find a job (since Nevada has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country) taking more time out of their busy lives to rile up the media to report their plight and get their government to pay attention and help them with their medical expenses.
Obamacare did not live up to the "Patient Protection" promised in its title to say the least