The system wasn't broken and people were lied to thinking they were going to get HI at lower premiums (and the poorest thought they would get full coverage free)-what a bunch of 'progressive' assholes bama and his gangster pals really are!!! It's a complete catastrophe!!!
- MailOnline spoke with patients who were told they would have to pay their bills in full if they couldn't prove they had insurance
- One was faced with a $3,000 hospital room charge and opted to leave the hospital after experiencing chest pains
- 'Should I be in the hospital? Probably,' she said
- Another, coughing in the cold, walked out without receiving a needed chest x-ray
- Consumers face sticker-shock from medical costs under the new Obamacare system, made worse if they can't prove they're insured
- As many as one-third of new enrollees' applications have seen problems when the government transmits them to insurance companies
Hospital staff in Northern Virginia are turning away sick people on a frigid Thursday morning because they can't determine whether their Obamacare insurance plans are in effect.
Patients in a close-in DC suburb who think they've signed up for new insurance plans are struggling to show their December enrollments are in force, and health care administrators aren't taking their word for it.
In place of quick service and painless billing, these Virginians are now facing the threat of sticker-shock that comes with bills they can't afford.
'They had no idea if my insurance was active or not!' a coughing Maria Galvez told MailOnline outside the Inova Healthplex facility in the town of Springfield.
She was leaving the building without getting a needed chest x-ray.
'The people in there told me that since I didn't have an insurance card, I would be billed for the whole cost of the x-ray,' Galvez said, her young daughter in tow. 'It's not fair – you know, I signed up last week like I was supposed to.'
The x-ray's cost, she was told, would likely be more than $500.
SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO
Going home: One patient left the hospital without being admitted for chest pains after she was warned she might have to pay full-price. She asked MailOnline not to publish a photograph of her face
MailOnline spoke to patients outside hospitals in Virginia's Washington, D.C. suburbs, many of them confused about the state of their insurance coverage
Galvez said she enrolled in a Carefirst Blue Cross bronze plan at a cost of about $450 per month through healthcare.gov, three days before Christmas.
'No one has sent me a bill,' she said.
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius testified in a December 11 congressional hearing that the federal government can't say how many new enrollees have written checks for their first month's premiums.
'Some may have paid, some may have not,' she conceded.
It's unlikely that a valid insurance card would have changed Galvez' fortunes, however.
GALLUP: MOST AMERICANS HAVE OBAMACARE HORROR STORIES
Fifty-nine percent of Americans told Gallup pollsters that they have had negative experiences with the Affordable Care Act, according to the public opinion giant's latest survey.
Just 39 per cent said their experiences were positive.
Only 7 per cent called their Obamacare journeys 'very positive,' but 29 per cent said their interaction with the new system has been 'very negative.'
Gallup interviewed 1,500 uninsured Americans in December, 450 of whom said they had visited health insurance exchange websites.
As dismal as those numbers are, they represent a slight improvement: In November, Gallup found that 63 per cent of uninsured Americans had negative experiences with the president's new health care overhaul.
Her Carefirst plan, identified on the Obamacare website as BlueChoice Plus Bronze, carries a $5,500 per-person deductible for 2014 – an amount she would have to pay out-of-pocket before her coverage would apply to medical expenses.
The Inova radiology department wouldn't speak with MailOnline, and Carefirst did not respond to a request for comment.
A similar situation frustrated Mary, an African-American small businesswoman who asked MailOnline not to publish her last name. She was leaving the Inova Alexandria Hospital in Alexandria, Virginia with two family members.
'I had chest pains last night, and they took me in the emergency room,' Mary said. 'They told me they were going to admit me, but when I told them I hadn't heard from my insurance company since I signed up, they changed their tune.'
She told MailOnline that a nurse advised her that her bill would go up by at least $3,000 if she were admitted for a day, and her doctor told her the decision was up to her.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2532869/They-no-idea-insurance-active-not-At-Virginia-hospitals-Obamacare-confusion-reigns-frustrated-patients-walk-out.html#ixzz2pNaDgGhN
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Replies
As opposed to when only the rich could afford health care you mean? What have changed, really? ;)
low to middle income people also have to pay TRIPLE the monthly premium because of obamacare new regulations on insurance providers-unbelievable-bama is not a saint just the oppisite
This is a complete fear based article. Things must change in order to get better. Obamacare is part of that change!
Why should the rich elitist be the only one's who can even get health care. The system was a broken system to begin with.
you idiot-obamacare TRIPLED the premiums for EVERYONE-get your head out of your butt
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