{"id":109601,"date":"2014-03-18T17:54:03","date_gmt":"2014-03-18T17:54:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=109601"},"modified":"2014-03-18T17:54:03","modified_gmt":"2014-03-18T17:54:03","slug":"obamacare-throws-62-year-old-man-400000-debt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/obamacare-throws-62-year-old-man-400000-debt\/","title":{"rendered":"Obamacare Throws 62 Year Old Man into $400,000 Debt"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jennifer Robison<\/strong><\/p>\n

The hospital bills are hitting Larry Basich\u2019s mailbox.<\/p>\n

That would be OK if Basich had health insurance. But he doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Thing is, he should be covered. Basich, 62, bought a plan through the state\u2019s Nevada Health Link insurance exchange in the fall. He\u2019s been paying monthly premiums since November.<\/p>\n

Yet the Las Vegan is stranded in a no-man\u2019s-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\u2019s covered only for March and beyond.<\/p>\n

Basich has begged for weeks for help from the exchange and its contractor, Xerox. But Basich\u2019s insurance broker said Xerox seems more interested in lawyering up and covering its hide than in working out Basich\u2019s problems. Nor is Basich the only client facing plan-selection errors through the exchange, she added.<\/p>\n

Xerox, meanwhile, said it\u2019s working every day to fix Basich\u2019s problem, and its legal counsel is routine.<\/p>\n

In the rollout of the Affordable Care Act and its insurance exchanges, you can find a success story for every failure. But Basich\u2019s case is extreme.<\/p>\n

WHO\u2019S RESPONSIBLE?<\/p>\n

Basich said he began trying to enroll on Oct. 1, the day the exchange website went live. Like many consumers, he fought technical flaws during multiple sign-up attempts. In mid-November he finally got through and chose his plan: UnitedHealthcare\u2019s MyHPNSilver1.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was like reaching the third level of Doom,\u201d Basich said of the torturous sign-up process.<\/p>\n

Basich paid his first premium on Nov. 21, and within days the exchange withdrew the $160.77 payment from his money-market savings account. Because Basich paid a month before the Dec. 23 deadline, his coverage was to begin Jan. 1.<\/p>\n

Weeks ticked by, but Basich received nothing to confirm he had insurance. Nevada Health Link kept telling him he was enrolled, but UnitedHealthcare said he wasn\u2019t in their system.<\/p>\n

Basich\u2019s predicament went critical on Dec. 31, when he had a heart attack. His treatment, which included a triple bypass on Jan. 3, resulted in $407,000 in medical bills in January and February that no insurer is covering.<\/p>\n

Basich and his insurance broker, Tamar Burch of Branch Benefits Consultants, said the issue appears to be confusion at the state exchange. Xerox\u2019s system says Basich chose a plan from another insurer, Nevada Health CO-OP, even though Basich has paperwork that shows he selected MyHPNSilver1. In short, Xerox can\u2019t seem to decide where Basich belongs, Burch said.<\/p>\n

So the exchange is trying to compromise, putting Basich with Nevada Health CO-OP for January and February, when he incurred his bills, and with UnitedHealthcare from this month on. But CO-OP officials say Basich is not their member.<\/p>\n

Nevada Health CO-OP CEO Tom Zumtobel told the exchange board on Feb. 27 that the nonprofit carrier spent seven days with Xerox determining Basich\u2019s eligibility, only to find that Basich hadn\u2019t chosen the group\u2019s coverage.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf he had picked our health plan, we would be advocating for a solution. But he didn\u2019t pick us,\u201d Zumtobel said. \u201cWe need someone on the board to advocate for him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why have four months passed without a resolution?<\/p>\n

\u201cXerox is truly out of their league. They need to understand they are an administrator, they are not an insurance company,\u201d Burch said. \u201cThey need to understand their boundaries. They don\u2019t understand this world. Everybody is at the mercy of Xerox, and they are not doing this right.\u201d<\/p>\n

Xerox representatives responded that they\u2019re working hard to make it right.<\/p>\n

Read more<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jennifer Robison The hospital bills are hitting Larry Basich\u2019s mailbox. That would be OK if Basich had health insurance. But he doesn\u2019t. Thing is, he should be covered. Basich, 62, bought a plan through the state\u2019s Nevada Health Link insurance exchange in the fall. He\u2019s been paying monthly premiums since November. Yet the Las Vegan […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":109602,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-109601","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109601\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}