Two Weeks into the Obamacare Exchange

Just in case any of you EVER have a need to work through the federal ACA exchange to submit an application...be advised, the software quality and reliability is atrocious.

After 2 weeks of trying, each day, I still have been unable to complete the process of submitting an application.  I like to think that I have a few basic computer skills and that I'd have no problems navigating pretty much any quality web site.  Not so with this piece of crap.

Sometimes it takes my name and password, sometimes it hangs or doesn't seem to like what I enter.  If I tell it to send me an email with my username and/or password (in case I might have forgotten them), I never receive an email.

I have a partially completed application due to my day-to-day experiences with system failures.  Sometimes I get a screen that does, in fact, tell me that I have an incomplete application and it shows me the basic details about it.  So, when I click on that application it opens it at the spot where I previously stopped/failed.  I have NO WAY to go back through the application and review/correct previously entered information.  I can only continue from where I left off.  So, I go ahead and do that.  

Now, you've got to understand that I'm over 65, on SS and Medicare and so am ineligible for Obamacare exchange services.  I fill in my correct birthdate, tell it I receive SS and am on Medicare, etc.  but it just trucks along.  The one thing I have NEVER done is fill in my social security number (and it always tells me that's optional).  I get done filling in all of the information I care to and it gives me a chance to then review everything.  So, I scroll through the information and find that it placed my home phone number in the cell phone field, leaving my home phone number blank; it failed to save information I gave it about my email address and language preferences and a few other basics.  I cannot, however, GO BACK and correct any of these errors.  So, I keep on trucking and get this page (note the poor use of English in the comment).



I click on the Save and Continue button and get the following screen giving me an option to verify my identity.



I click on the Verify My Identify button and it asks me some questions based on information it SHOULD have saved for my profile (but did not) and so, whatever I type in I fail the security check.  

So, now, I have a completed application that contains omissions and errors that I cannot correct and I cannot pass their security tests.  I have no way to delete the application and simply start over.

Wonderful fucking system our government has given us at the cost of $88 million taxpayer dollars.  There is NO WAY I'd trust this thing to make reservations for a tee time let alone enroll me in any sort of insurance program.

I'm going to stop my day-to-day tests for a month or so then see how it works.  Perhaps by then, when I get to the point where I fill in my birthdate, the system will be smart enough to say something like "I'm sorry.  It appears you're covered by Medicare and there is no need to submit an application".

  

Well they did pay billions to Canada to write the code so it may take a few years to work