[Latest update: Tuesday, October 15]

Sharing my day-by-day experience signing up for health insurance for 2014.  I will update this as events unfold, with past-to-present chronology.

Monday, September 30

I got a letter from my insurance company, BCBS of North Carolina, that my present policy has not been grandfathered (I knew that would be the case) and that I must select a new policy for 2014.  My current policy has a $10,000 per person out-of-pocket (PPOOP) maximum.  (Yes readers, you may pronounce that acronym “pee-poop.”)  The new policy that BCBS suggests is “closest” to what I have now has a $5,500 PPOOP, and the monthly premium they want me to pay is more than 3 times what I am paying now.

I know: I am now 60, and both my wife and I are a year older than what we were last year, and I know that I am now in a pool where pre-existing conditions do not matter, and so the relatively healthy will now help pay for care for the relatively unhealthy in that pool.  But I wasn’t expecting a premium increase of this extent, based on what I had heard in the news.

I am anxious to check out HealthCare.Gov tomorrow and see whether I can get a policy with a higher PPOOP and consequently a lower monthly premium.

Tuesday, October 1

This is the first day that HealthCare.Gov is open for business.  Like millions of others, all I see there is a screen explaining that the web site is busy, please try again later.  My state, North Carolina, in a fit of rebellion, elected not to set up its own health insurance exchange, and so I have to use the same site that two-thirds of the United States is trying to use.

I try again later that evening.  After waiting a few minutes at the “site is busy, please wait” screen, I am able to get into the account sign-up area.  I entered my name, e-mail address and password and got as far as the security question page (e.g., “Which one of your children do you like best?”) but I could not select any questions to answer.   There is nothing there. Dead in the water again.  I’ll try again tomorrow.

Wednesday, October 2

Could not access the site at all.  Site is busy.  So am I.

Thursday, October 3

After the usual wait at the start page, I once again begin the account setup process by entering my name, e-mail address and password.  This time, when I get to the security question screen, there are actually security questions to answer.  (I was disappointed to see that “Which one of your children do you like best?” was not among them.)  I answer the questions and click “Continue.”  HealthCare.Gov takes me back to the login page, so that I can enter my newly created username and password.  I do so, and it rejects them.

I figure, OK, I guess it may take a while for my account to be registered in your database.  I’ll try to log in tomorrow.

Friday, October 4

Today, I go directly to the log in screen and (after the usual wait on the please-stay-on-this-page page) I again enter my username and password.  The website still rejects my information as being invalid, tells me to review it, and suggests that I call the 800 number at the Marketplace Call Center.  I can’t imagine what navigating the Call Center would be like, if my web experience is any indication, and so I elect to hold off.  I figure that something is messed up in the database, so tomorrow I will simply create a new account and try again.

Saturday, October 5

The HealthCare.Gov website is down for maintenance.

Sunday, October 6

I start over, intending to create a new account in HealthCare.Gov.  I go through the steps of entering my name, my e-mail address, my user name and passwords.  I answer the security questions again, and click the Continue button.  The site tells me it cannot create my account at this time, please try again later.  It decides to tell me this only after I have entered all the information.  I go back to the account setup page and, of course, all the fields are blank as if I had never typed anything in.

This is getting tiresome.  I’m not going to deal with the site again today.  I am suspecting that the government has hired laid-off programmers from AOL to build the site.

Monday, October 7

Here we go again, this time with time-stamps.  At 12:23 pm, I click on the “Apply Now” button and I am directed to my old friend, the “Please Wait” page.  At 12:33 pm, the “Get Started” page pops up and I am ready to enter account setup information.  At 12:35 pm, I have entered my username, e-mail address, passwords and security questions, and I click on “Create Account”.  This displays another “Please Wait” screen.  At 12:36 pm, the “Sign Up Unsuccessful” page is displayed, with this message:  “Important: Your account couldnt be created at this time. The system is unavailable.”  There is a “Try Again” button at the bottom of the page.  I click “Try Again”.  The site sends me back to the account setup page, with all the information fields blank.  Fourteen minutes of my life (and 60 more seconds of yours) wasted.

Thursday, October 10

Waiting a few days helped, but didn’t help.  I was able to access the account setup page almost immediately, without any “Please Wait” screen.  A promising sign.  I once again entered my account setup information, hit the “Continue” button, and was informed that the site couldn’t set up my account because the username was already taken.  Whoa, so maybe my account was already active!  Progress, of a sort.  So I tried logging in with the account name I tried to enter a few days ago.  Sorry, that account is invalid!

Undaunted, I tried to create yet another new account with yet another new username, and I answered all the security questions again — the ninth or tenth time I have told them the name of my oldest niece, my mother’s birthplace and my favorite childhood friend.

The result?  “We cannot create your account at this time.”

Can I ask a dumb question?  Why can’t the website diagnose itself and tell us at the outset, that it cannot do what we want it to do, before we enter all our information?  Franz Kafka, phone home.

Tuesday, October 15

This time I waited five days to try again.  Programmers can get a lot done in five days, right?  Wrong.  After I entered my account information, the system idled for a few minutes and then decided that it was unavailable.  At this point, I think I will wait until Halloween to return to HealthCare.Gov.  What will it be then, Trick or Treat?

“I told you.  I’m not playing unless my side gets four outs.  It’s my ball, anyway.  I’ll just go home and take my ball with me.  Then no one can play.  Is that what you want?”

“Aw, come on, Johnny.  No one gets four outs.  You can’t just change the rules.  This is baseball.  Come on, we’re all here to play.  Let’s just play.”

“No.  I told you.  Four outs for my team.”

“Geez!  What is it with you?  You know I’m not going to say yes to that!  It’s not fair!”

“You didn’t ask your team yet.  I say, four outs for our side or else no one plays.  Ask the rest of your team.”

“Okay, okay, what a dork.  Okay, you heard him, what do you guys say to four outs for Johnny’s team?  There you go.  They all say no.  Now come on, don’t be dumb, let’s play.”

“How about this then.  We’ll play if you give us four outs an inning for this game, and we can decide about the next game later.”

“But that’s the same thing!  Johnny, you’re just wasting our time.  Let’s play by the rules.  We can’t just change the rules of baseball for you.  If we do it now, next time you’ll want five outs!”

“You know what?  You’re the one who doesn’t want to play.  You won’t give up anything.  All we wanted was four outs an inning, just for this game, and now you’re going to spoil it for everyone.  You’re just being stubborn.  Everyone here wants to play ball and you’re the reason we’re not playing.”

“This is crazy!  What’s the point playing baseball if we don’t play by baseball rules?”

“I’m waaay-tinnnnng.”

“No!  Johnny, this is making you look stupid.  There’s no point in talking about this.”

“Who are you calling stupid?  Now you don’t want to talk.  You just care about winning.  Boy, this is some damn game!  Lookit, your team doesn’t want to cancel the game and neither do I.  All we’re asking is to sit down and have a discussion and then play the game.  Simple as that.  But it all has to begin with a simple discussion.   And you won’t even talk.  Wow!  Come on guys, let’s go home.”

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* For more information about bullying, visit the web site StopBullying.gov.  The first thing you will see on the screen:  “Due to the lapse in government funding, only web sites supporting excepted functions will be updated unless otherwise funded. As a result, the information on this website may not be up to date, the transactions submitted via the website may not be processed, and the agency may not be able to respond to inquiries until appropriations are enacted.”