Things Ive Learned Thanks to Zerocare

[Chadeaux]

Things I've Learned Thanks to Zerocare

After spending the equivalent of 46 hours in the last 5 weeks working on registering for Zerocare, the "Affordable Aircraft Act" or the "Affordable Boat Act" almost sound logical after some of the excuses I have heard in the last few weeks of dealing with the Healthcare Marketplace geniuses.

For instance, did you know that if you - at any point in the conversation are not cheerful - you risk being considered to be "out of line and abusive?" Phrases like: "The program doesn't work at all! Please help me!" are considered abusive speech and will get you disconnected.

Certain words set them off and they will disconnect you. For instance, bologna when used in the place of bull***t (as in "that's a bunch of bologna"), is considered to be cursing. You will be disconnected.

Of course, when you apply you must apply for a certain State of residence. For instance, I live in Arkansas. Says so right there in my address on their screen. Why does it say that? Because I've had to repeat my address over and over to the agent who has a hard time understanding my "accent" (sorry, ebonics was never offered when I was in school). I am from the south, but if we speak on the phone you would never know it. It took years to learn to properly enunciate words and erase all traces of my Cajun/redneck accent, but I have been successful.

I learned that once you start an application, you can not start over. If the computer "screws up" (another curse phrase) your application as it did mine ... I added my wife as a dependent to be insured, then the website added her again and decided she was no longer married to me, but was married to her self ... you are stuck with it. You can't make changes when it adds information on a whim, you're stuck with it forever.

I learned that the "Help" button will take you to the "Chat Room" for a one on one help session with a Marketplace Representative. When you explain what is happening, they are very helpful. They repeat the phone number 1-800-318-2596 time after time. If you question how helpful that number is (it is the phone number to the Healthcare Marketplace), you are being abusive and they will end your chat session. Using the phrase: "Please help me" is considered sufficient cause to terminate your connection because they see that phrase as being abusive.

So, you get to the chat area to ask your questions, and regardless of your question all they do is send you to that phone number. Then they have the nerve to ask "df you have any more questions?" or "can I help you with anything else?" Whatever you do, don't let them know that they haven't answered your first question. In their tiny world (they are employees of General Dynamics) there is only one answer no matter what your question is: call 1-800-318-2596

The loonies are running Zerocare and the Health Insurance Marketplace. Seriously, it's to the point that I worry for all the asylum workers who must be without a job as all their charges are now government employees manning phones and chat rooms for Zerocare.

As for the folks who man the phones, they are almost as smart as the folks manning the chat rooms. They patiently listen to your problems so long as you do it in a cheery voice, then they tell you to complete a paper application and mail it in so they can start putting the information into the computers sometime after December 1. If you ask to speak to their boss, you may actually eventually get passed on to an ARC (Advanced Resolution Counselor) supervisor. Surely now we can get some help. Sorry, they will only ask if they can call you at a time more convenient to them.

I work from 8AM to 5:30 PM. They can only contact me from 8AM to 6 PM (by the time I get home, it's after 6). I tell them that the only time I'm available is from 6 to 9 Monday - Friday, and they will get upset and tell you that you cannot tell them when they can call. If you tell them that your employer does not pay you to visit with them while you're on the job. Now they suggest that you take a day off work. So, I'm thinking Great! I can swap a Saturday for Wednesday. Can you call me Wednesday? "No sir, you cannot set a specific day to speak with an ARC supervisor." "What day will you call?" "We will call you between 8AM and 6 PM Monday thru Friday, but we don't know which day." "What should I do?" "Well, you need to wait at home until we get to your problem." Basically, take the week off and spend your whole life waiting for our call.

Sounds a bit like conditioning persons to accept abuse to me.

Oh well, we try again Tuesday after the weekend's repairs have been completed and they "beta test" the changes on Monday.

 

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[DeepseekerADS]

Chadeaux, you are our Lewis & Clark expedition into nightmares!!!

Thanks for the sacrifice you're making. You oughta have it nailed down by mid-Spring...

 

[Chadeaux]

I love optimistic people ... I'm actually shooting for late summer 2014.

 

[TheRingFinder]

I wonder how much i have to pay in to take care of people like this?

 

[pat-tekker-cat]

Chad, we will have to list you in the American Martyrs site! You due diligence has not gone unnoted.
While I have full faith that you are smarter than the equipment and ppl you are working with, they do have a major advantage.
It's not their healthcare, you do not affect them in any way, and they are only their to get a paycheck(but we will call it "helping ppl").
Don't let them raise your blood pressure and aggravate you! Good luck, too!

 

[Chadeaux]

View attachment 896851

I wonder how much i have to pay in to take care of people like this?

She's actually gone mad from trying to get signed up at healthcare.gov ... the computer in the background is a dead give away. She wasn't strong enough and the stupidity, in her case, was contagious. I feel like I sacrifice a few hundred brain cells each time I deal with them.

Chad, we will have to list you in the American Martyrs site! You due diligence has not gone unnoted.
While I have full faith that you are smarter than the equipment and ppl you are working with, they do have a major advantage.
It's not their healthcare, you do not affect them in any way, and they are only their to get a paycheck(but we will call it "helping ppl").
Don't let them raise your blood pressure and aggravate you! Good luck, too!

I'm just desperate. My wife is a breast cancer patient. She loses her medicaid coverage on Dec. 31, 2013 and will be without any coverage on Jan. 1 if I cannot get us signed up.

I don't know how people ever got the idea that you cannot get treatment if you don't have insurance. I'm 56 and at times have been without health insurance. When I was young, I believed the lies about being denied coverage ... then I found out that there are other options than going to the hospital or a physician who has an expensive office and big staff to pay for.

There are clinics which will allow you to pay based on your income. Unfortunately, those will be a memory after January 1, 2013 as the "Affordable Care Act" is going to force them to require visitors to be signed up with Zerocare or pay full price for each visit and all medication.

Within two years, if this cluster **** of an idea continues to exist, you will see people dying in the emergency room without treatment. You will see many many people dying because they were denied health care based on a lack of insurance and / or an inability to meet the deductibles.

Zerocare is not an upgrade, it is a health care disaster in the making.

 

[pat-tekker-cat]

Chad, I think I would be having some very serious talks with my doctor. If med's are a factor, as I know treatment drugs are very expensive (ones my household needed cost $10,000 a month "retail"). Some of the pharmaceutical companies have some programs for drug assistance, I apologize if I don't know the particulars on them.
I also sent you a pm. Ya'll hang in there and be good to yourselves, eat well, think positive, lift each other up. We got enough of the world and government trying to kick us down, ya'll be good to each other and ya'll can surely overcome all this, too!

 

[DeepseekerADS]

You go Pat!!!

You a one person I do admire

And, THAT is because of what you add to this forum.

 

[Mad Machinist]

Chad, I think I would be having some very serious talks with my doctor. If med's are a factor, as I know treatment drugs are very expensive (ones my household needed cost $10,000 a month "retail"). Some of the pharmaceutical companies have some programs for drug assistance, I apologize if I don't know the particulars on them.
I also sent you a pm. Ya'll hang in there and be good to yourselves, eat well, think positive, lift each other up. We got enough of the world and government trying to kick us down, ya'll be good to each other and ya'll can surely overcome all this, too!

I know Phizer and AstroZeneca do.

 

[smokeythecat]

Love the girl in the video, actually, it looks like someone I know, and acts like her too. She'd do that.

Obamacare is going to go two ways 1) crash and burn 2) the government will print a quadzillion more dollars and fund it to the point gas is $20 a gallon, etc. etc. etc.

 

[pat-tekker-cat]

Deep, you know flattery will get you everywhere!

I do feel we may need to try and now start offering some alternatives, to what real people are going to do when their real insurance runs out.

Besides calling the pharmaceutical companies for help. I was reminded earlier, there is Gilda's Club, (and Friends of Gild's Club, for men, if I'm not mistaken). Women who may be in treatment and losing coverage, the women of these groups may can get together for provider locating, brainstorming support, and I see drug sharing becoming very popular next yr.

Also, the American Lung Assoc may be able to provide some type of help, for those seriously ill, facing radical surgery, and folo-up treatments.

Doctors Without Borders, may need to start operating more in the US.

We still have St. Jude's and Shriner hospitals. They may can provide expensive needed meds, to those in most need (at reduced costs). We should probably give our Obamacare premiums, to some of those facilities. Charity based healthcare, may be the only option for many, in do or die situations.

I'm trying to throw these few feeble suggestions out there, because if they don't get this straightened out, in a month and a half, there is going to be real problems, that affect real people, not just computer glitches.
I've been out of the healthcare loop for many yrs. I do wish some, that may still be in the industry could also offer some ideas.

eta: What kind of insurance do the Amish in Pa have? I know they used the hospitals in the chain I worked for, but we never had a problem with the Amish paying. I don't know if the have an insurance pool, much like pastors of churches do. Or if they pay full costs or are given a private pay reduced amount, similar to the insurance companies fee schedules. just an afterthought.

 

[packerbacker]

Just one thing to remember. Don't ever tell them they are driving you crazy. If you do, you can kiss your guns goodbye.

 

[Chadeaux]

Just one thing to remember. Don't ever tell them they are driving you crazy. If you do, you can kiss your guns goodbye.

Didn't I tell you about my boating accident?

 

[packerbacker]

Didn't have to chad ol' buddy, remember??....I was with you.

 

[pat-tekker-cat]

Oh, and while I was thinking today, I come up with another good one. Watch out world!

Where the heck is the food industry in all this! All those Fast Food Heart Attack and Sodium burger producers, that have had their hand, in contributing to health decline? Bloomburg and them may be right, all that soda that's so BAD for everyone, well let them PONY UP to the
"you can help pay for this mess" too trough!
What about all that sodium and chemical packed cwap, you find in your grocery store? Our food smells more like something we should spread on our lawns and less like food every year! Oh, and watch out, here comes GMO, I don't want to eat nothing a BUG WON"T EAT!

So given, that many are in situations, where they may not have access to good healthy natural foods, and are forced to eat slop filled with chemicals, and ALOT healthcare problems come from what we eat, tell the food manufacturer's, they can take a share and load of this burden, too!
They wanna ban trans-fat NOW? Let 'em pay for 50 yrs of sickening us, with that stuff!

I KNEW I could find us some scapegoats, if I looked hard enough!
See, that cat's good for something, after all.

 

[Chadeaux]

I learned something new this evening during my excursion into the asylum:

If a woman or man is on medicaid today, but know that they are not going to qualify next year -- or that the medicaid program they are participating in will be terminated next year -- under Zerocare, they cannot even apply for coverage until their program has officially ended or they have been otherwise removed from medicaid.

Such nice people there in Washington. I know people who are so ill and so poor that without medicaid they will not be able to get through a month without that service. As a result, their choice will be meds or food or lodging. Their choice? Probably not, I'm sure somewhere in those 3,500 pages there is something about the proper way to wait until you can be insured ... and if you choose one, there will be a place there which says THAT is the choice that causes you to be disqualified for another month from getting Zerocare insurance.

 

[Dave44]

The reports are coming out now! Millions losing insurance. Less than 50,000 signed up for lucifercare so far! This program really is a Trojan horse! Once he has collapsed the system what will the masses demand?

We should look at that cloward/ piven strategy again!

 

[pat-tekker-cat]

We are always going to have the poor among us. It's just a fact.

I really hate seeing ppl dis-illusioned, expecting something great, believing the lies, to only have cold hard reality smack them in the face. It's not right if Madoff does it, Soros, or Obama and his crew!
It is a Trojan Horse! Paying for Obamacare and getting subsidies has NOTHING to do with paying doctors and hospitals.

They are attorneys and politicians, WTH do they know about administering CARE for sick ppl? Their beaurocratic bs is going to cost ppl like we have no clue(and I really hope I am wrong). When was the last time you were in a courthouse? Just watch how attorneys and little d.a.'s pat each other on the back, in their expensive suits and neck breaking high heels, and congratulate each other, over having screwed someone else over? It's disgusting!

Maybe some in his country are guilty of having "other priorities", besides worrying about insurance or bothering to actually pay for their healthcare services. Yes, that may have been somes' choice. Hey, it's a free country(or was). Now we see how that may be coming to bite us in the butt!

We need to stop associating "having insurance" with paying our medical bills, imho. Government has no place in healthcare! And we have to have the pharma companies with us for humanity reasons, not profits!
I would rather see healthcare ran by churches, charities, and those philanthropic organizations that actually have a heart in helping and caring for ppl!
As we can all already plainly see, the only ones benefitting from this debacle of a program, is some computer companies who have made millions for an incompetent product, and we made some part-time jobs for some folks to tell ppl to call a number and fill out paper work.

I would REALLY really like someone to tell me, what does ANY of the above have to do with, fixing a broken arm? Administering proper drugs after a stroke, stabilizing a heart attack patient, inserting a catheter, administering chemo med's, dialysis?
Maybe we should be teaching "HEALTH" in our school systems, instead of worrying about being pc.......

We have to fund and pay for our doctors, hospitals, and clinics. Not computer companies and call centers!