It occurred to me while reading all this back and forth blame that the 
problems are fundamental and should have been known in advance, by the 
legislative committees that wrote and designed the system.

The problem is both the number and complexity of different corporate 
insurers and their own trickery in claiming to cover healthcare when in fact 
they are designed to not cover healthcare, because denying claims on 
technicalities is the basis of their profits. In order to keep more money 
coming in than going out, the claims process has been made as close to 
impossible to meet requirements as possible.

Now multiply that by the number of companies authoritized to due this 
business across the states and their individually configured requirements 
and viola, a mess. It was already a mess when CMS was the central public 
authority for Medicare and Medicaid.

Why would the same system work in a central `marketplace' option run over 
the web and open to the public? The healthcare industry employs thousands of 
billing personnel to navigate these billing systems and process claims and 
the turn over rate is very high.

How can such a system be navigated by the public and successfully enroll 
themselves in an appropriate plan that covers their needs?

Anybody who has tried to figure out which of the double-talking drug 
coverage companies manage part D of Medicare to choose, will tell you they 
need expert counseling to make sure they get the coverage they have to pay 
for.

Why would the same general system work for the general public?

``One reason for the logjam, he suggested, is that the
administration made `a late decision requiring consumers to register for
an account before they could browse for insurance products.'

The problem was the lateness of decision, but the decision itself. You have 
to successfully navigate a registration and verification process before you 
get to study the plans. Nice.

CG






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