We had a commenter come here the other day and note that we’re not reporting on the Obamacare websites’ failures anymore, implying the sites have been fixed.
Sure we are, because the sites haven’t been fixed. Here’s video from Fox 12 TV of folks from Rhode Island. The state’s Obamacare website isn’t working for them.
Transcript:
Fox 12 Reporter SUSAN HOGAN: “It’s certainly no secret that computer glitches literally rocked the health care system worldwide. And Health Source Rhode Island is not immune to these issues either. And since it launched, Call 12 for Action has received 97 complaints. David McDonald from Bristol applied for health insurance from Health Source Rhode Island, but ever since, he’s had big problems.”
MCDONALD: “Every time we had a question we got a different answer. We though we had things resolved.”
HOGAN: “The problem started when David decided to deactivate his account and obtain insurance directly through BlueCross. It should have been an easy cancellation request, but turned out to be a costly problem.”
MCDONALD: “The next month, we had a bill. And so we called them up and they apologized, and said it had been taken care of.”
HOGAN: “Not exactly.”
MCDONALD: “The month after that, we got another bill.”
HOGAN: “Four bills in total.”
MCDONALD: “You’d think after that many times they could correct the problem But they can’t. And if they can’t do that, how do we — how does anybody know that they’re doing anything accurately?”
HOGAN: “That’s when David called 12 for Action.”
MCDONALD: “I came to you because I didn’t think they’d listen to me.”
Get that? The man got so fed up with the government’s lack of response that he felt like he had no choice but to go to the media. The station took his and the “many other” complaints it has received to the state’s Obamacare bureaucracy.
The answer coming from that bureaucracy is not inspiring: Christine Ferguson, of the Rhode Island healthcare exchange, tells Hogan that “At the end of the day, the most important thing is that we evolve this into really excellent customer service, that the system gets fixed.”
Why didn’t this expensive beast work to start with? Why, nearly six months on, hasn’t the “really excellent customer service” “evolved” yet? Who is accountable for this debacle? What role is Healthcare.gov’s lack of a working back end playing in sites like Rhode Island’s inability to function?
Who is accountable for the fact that David McDonald, along with millions of others, has now lost his health insurance thanks to this mess?
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