At what point am I allowed to say healthcare.gov is a freaking nightmare [View all]

[BlueStreak]

Yeah, there have been lots of "hits" but that is because millions of us are beating our heads against the wall trying to even get logged into the system. How many people are actually getting far enough to do anything useful? Not very many.

I've tried to log on at least 50 times this week, at all hours of the day and night. Even at 2AM, the system says there are too many people on. After 24 hours of trying I finally got an account created. But I cannot log into it. It won't say why. I did all the measures suggested in "having trouble logging on". I tried to call the help number that was listed. I couldn't get through on that line for 2 days. Finally I did get through, but they don't offer any assistance whatsoever in logging on. They say chat support is available, but you can never get through to an agent that way.

I tried both the "forgot my password" and "forgot my username" links on the off chance that somehow something had gotten garbled. The "forgot my password" did send an email for password recovery. Obviously nobody ever even tested that function because the email wasn't even properly formatted for a link back. But I extracted the link and tried to go directly to the site. That link didn't work at all -- giving me an obscure error message. The "Forgot my userid" link said it sent an email, but it never did.

So I figured maybe I was just unlucky with that account. I created another account using a different email address on a completely different email system. Again, it took about 10 hours to finally get that created because the system was down most of that time. And I got exactly the same results. So I cannot log into the site to see the available plans.

OK, I called the help line again. At 1AM yesterday, I finally got somebody. He couldn't help me with my account, but he offered to enter the information online and read the screen back to me. He acted as if this is what he does all day long. What a painful process. I had to re-dictate every item about 4 times until he typed it in correctly -- didn't even know how to spell "Indiana." I was on the phone 40-50 minutes before I got the most basic information. He was able to tell me that Bronze policies for one person with no subsidies would range from $541-641 and gold would range from $846-956 -- that's more than I pay now. But I need a policy for two, and I might qualify for subsidy. I need to play with the numbers a little to see that, and I wasn't willing to stay on the phone another 2 hours with this guy. He never got to the point of looking at specific policies, and I wasn't going to have him read me the details over the phone. He had no ability to send any information to me via fax, PDF, or any other means.

What kind of nonsense is this? I am a supporter. What do you think those who are NOT supporters are thinking about this damned mess of a system?

So please tell me when it is permissible for a person to speak the truth about this screwed-up system? Am I expected to remain a blind cheerleader for another week? Another month? Indefinitely?

This system is so bad that it may accomplish what the Republicans and Faux "news" haven't been able to accomplish in three years.