Atlanta Men Tell Sebelius About Their Insurance Exchange Experience
Since the shaky roll-out of the federal insurance exchange last month, the Obama Administration arguably has spent as much time apologizing as it has trying to fix the website.
The expressions of regret continued yesterday in Atlanta, even as Dept. of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius touted two big announcements related to the Affordable Care Act.
An audio version of this report as heard on Weekend Edition Saturday
The first, made at the Carter Center, outlined requirements that insurers cover treatment for mental health and substance abuse at the same levels they cover physical illnesses.
From there, Sebelius traveled to Southside Medical Center in Atlanta to promote a $150-million grant to strengthen community health centers.
Her tour began at the center’s computer lab, where navigators were busy walking a handful of hand-picked consumers through the insurance marketplace process.
Most went as planned, although a few folks said they were having minor problems.
(Recall, it was problems with that marketplace that brought a month of unwanted—and quite negative—attention to the healthcare law. When consumers logged on, they got anything but an insurance policy.)
A while back I came across a local mortgage broker who planned to shop for a policy on Oct. 1st, and buy one the following day. The game plan was for me to follow Michael Lappin through the process, turning his experience into an anecdotal, local story.
A week passed. Lappin still couldn’t get in.
“It’d kick me out and say it could not create an account,” he said in an earlier interview looking at his initial attempts. “And I’d have to start all over again, which was the most frustrating part.”
Lappin and I agreed to check back in once some of the system’s kinks went away.
A few weeks later, I visited his midtown office where he was ecstatic. Not only had he gotten in, he really liked what he saw.
“Between the two of us, we’re going to save $5,000,” he said of his and his husband’s chosen policy.
And that’s where my reporting ended, or so I thought.
But Friday, in front of a few dozen reporters and TV cameras lining the room where Sec. Sebelius was staged, there were Michael and John telling her about their experience.
Later, when Sebelius held a press conference, she relied on their story as a core example of her message. Turns out the Dept. of Health and Human Services caught WABE’s profile of Lappin, got in touch, and after multiple “vetting” calls, asked the men to be a part of the secretary’s visit.
While Lappin says he was somewhat frustrated at times, he dismisses calls of some in Congress that Sibelius step down.
As I was leaving the event, Lappin pulled me aside. He wanted to tell me about the last time he signed up for health coverage. On paper. Mailed in.
This experience in comparison, he said, was nowhere near as frustrating.
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