Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Error ID:500.300588

As I write, I am waiting for a "representative" to help me finish submitting my application for health insurance on healthcare.gov. I don't really know why I'm doing this again. It is the cliched definition of insanity; but if I'm insane, I'm also out of luck. I don't have healthcare coverage. I've been trying to do this for a month. I have completed the application process several times. The plan I picked out looks both good and affordable; but every time, at the end, when I submit it, I get the error message. I have followed every boilerplate instruction I have received from both the "chat representatives" online, and the ones you reach by phone. They are the same people, using the same boilerplate. Why am I calling yet again? What makes me hope I'll get the magical enlightened representative who has actually helped someone through this error message? Only that I need insurance, and because if I'm without insurance after the March 31 open enrollment period, I will be in  violation of the law, and open enrollment will shut, unless it won't, or unless they give a break to those of us held captive in cell block 500.300588.

After a fifteen minute wait, I'm now talking to a representative. I give her, as I have so many others, my information, so she can look up my account, see the problem, and give me the boilerplate response. The chat people tell you to call the phone reps, and the phone reps tell you to talk to the chat people. Oops. We are mysteriously disconnected. I promise I wasn't rude or angry. What's the use of that? These are just ordinary people who got a job manning the healthcare.gov helpline; people who were handed a manual from which to glean simple responses to ordinary questions. Apparently my question is extraordinary. Except, judging by my online research, there are thousands of others struggling with the same extraordinary problem who have received the same message: "Sorry, an error has occurred. Please try again. If that doesn't work, log out. Error ID:500.300588" Oh, I have logged out, and in, and out, and in, and out; and never have I had so much in and out with so little pleasure. And I really wish that last statement were true.

I call back. A twenty minute hold for a representative. We start to go through the drill: name address, date of birth, social security number . . . but this time I ask for a supervisor. Sure, I can talk to a supervisor, but I'll have to wait.

Forty minutes later, the supervisor greets me. I can hear the PTSD in her quavering voice. Clearly this woman has spoken with many pissed off insurance seeking people who were made angry and abusive by ERROR 500.300588, and her inability to do anything about it. She's probably sorry she took the job. But I'm not her therapist. I'm not even a therapist. I'm just a guy who had been trying to apply for health insurance for what seems now like most of his life. I have already invested more time on this project than I have every other insurance need in my whole lifetime combined. I have already spent more time on this than I did getting my undergraduate degree, and . . . nada, bupkis, zero, no coverage for you! But I'm not angry. Where would that get me? I might just punch a wall and break my hand. I'm not insured. The emergency room visit would bankrupt me.

We go through the same drill. I answer all the same questions. "Yes. Yes. No. No. Patterson. November 1, 1953. Yes, No. No . . . " I explain the problem once again. I am given the exact same suggestions I was given before. Finally I say. "You can't really help me with this, can you?"

"No," she says, "I'm sorry. Please don't yell at me."

She didn't actually say that last thing, not with words anyway.

Today was the deadline for a policy to go into effect on February 1. What's another month without insurance, so long as I don't lose my temper and break a hand, or no one commits me to an asylum? I am a prisoner of Error ID:500.300588. Error ID:500.300588 is preventing me from getting health insurance, and there is not a damn thing I can do about it. I asked: not only does no one know how to correct ERROR ID:500.300588, they don't even know what it is or what it means. This makes me laugh. it also makes me very angry. I want to punch a wall. I want to go strangle someone, but I'm not in very good shape. I'd have to choose someone old and weak to strangle, or very young and weak. Even then, what if they get the better of me and rupture my spleen with a violent kick to the chest? What if they see me coming and shoot me (I am, after all, in St. Louis)? Or I have a heart attack while attempting the strangle? I'm uninsured. They might be too. They might be fellow 500.300588ers. I might be strangling a comrade.

Maybe you're ready for me to now rail against "Obamacare," but I'm not going to. Without the Affordable Healthcare Act I simply wouldn't be able to get insurance. I feel very lucky. Now I can not get insurance with the Affordable Healthcare Act. This seems somehow much better. Maybe next month, or next year. Hey, in five years I'll qualify for Medicare! I hear that works pretty well.

The roll out of this program gave ammunition to people who say things like, "What are the eight scariest words in the English language? I'm from the government. I'm here to help!" Ammunition? Hell, they turned over an entire arsenal. Some of my best friends say things like that. Some of my friends who say things like that receive a lot of help from the government; some even work for the government and have good health plans. I'm just glad I have some friends. Some of them are very good friends. But if I need another back surgery, none of them will be offering to pay for it, and because I've already had two, before the Affordable Health Care Act no insurance company would cover me individually. I work for myself. Now I'm part of a very large group. There are some 314 million of us. And if they ever get ERROR ID:500.300588 figured out, well, damn, I just might get me some health insurance.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ted,
You have, again, written a wonderful piece that I hope many will read and consider. As a health care provider I am sick of hearing many people parrot what conservative propagandists refer to as Obamacare. It's the Affordable Healthcare Act, that is intended to help millions of Americans - yes even those who bitterly complain about illegal aliens getting better health care than US citizens. Many physicians are refusing to participate in insurance plans that reimburse at a lower rate because of greed while the rest of us mortals (including Ph.D.s) can suck it up & take low fees/reimbursement if we want to eek out a living. The rich or people who have not endured much hardship are clueless and continue their self-righteous crusade for the Republican Party. Glad you're holding out for correction of error!
DCZ, Ph.D

Anonymous said...

I am in the same boat, and have been since October! I log in every so often and try again, hoping that I magically will be able to complete my enrollment process!

TT Patterson said...

Update! I have achieved success and coverage under the Universal Health Act. I think, but am not sure, that the problem was that the registration process either required an actual "HOME ADDRESS," which being semi-homeless, I do not have, or, where it says "MIDDLE NAME (OPTIONAL)" it doesn't mean that it is optional that you enter your middle name, it means, rather, that if you do not have a middle name you are not required to enter one. Anyway, by deleting my former application, and applying yet again, it finally went through.

Matt Atkinson said...

BULL'S EYE! I've been trying for four months now, but run into that same dreadful red error on the last step every time. No tech support person can help; they all confess that this issue has stopped countless applications, and none of them knows what causes it or how to fix it. "Try removing your application and redoing it." I've done that ten times as of tonight, and I can barely resist the urge to rage-scream at them when they tell me to remove/redo. It's like the incompetent tech support guy who says, "Oh, your docs won't load? Format and reinstall Windows!"

Tonight, a tech even spent an hour entering all my info FOR me as I guided him through the questions. Same error!

Nobody at healthcare has a clue how to fix this, and the problem isn't acknowledged except by exasperated techs. Tonight, one told me that 400,000 applications have been stymied by this very error. He tried to console me, "Don't worry, you're not going to get fined for not having health coverage yet."

As if that was the point.

My wife needs prescriptions. We both need dental care. I haven't had a physical in three years. She was in the middle of post-surgery physical therapy when her coverage ended months ago. We have no health care because of Error id:500.300588.

Not because of Republicans, or Obama, or politics, but because of error id:500.300588.

TT Patterson said...

I got lucky. I think it came down to the middle name thing . . . but I'll never know for sure. I know that many thousands are encountering this error, and yet it has not been officially addressed--frustrating and crazy. I wish you the best, and hope that your application finds its way through the snafu.