Health Insurance To Start Jan. 1

With three weeks left in the year, not one of the thousands of Massachusetts residents who need to enroll in new health insurance plans by Jan. 1 has been able to do so through the state insurance marketplace that was revamped to comply with the national Affordable Care Act.

About 126,000 people enrolled in health plans subsidized by the state have until March to choose a new plan and can keep their current coverage until then. But thousands of others are depending on a new plan to start on the first of the year, and some worry that their coverage will not be ready in time. Their anxiety has only been heightened by stubborn technical problems, such as a snag this week that blocked many people from signing in to the website.

Gina Kamentsky of Somerville has been trying to enroll through the Massachusetts Health Connector for weeks. Her insurance plan, bought through her partner’s former employer, expires this month. Because of expensive medications and a doctor’s appointment she cannot miss, the 54-year-old artist from Somerville said she needs coverage in January. Plus, the landmark 2006 state health insurance law, the model for the national law, requires her and most others to have coverage.

Kamentsky was first stymied by the widespread technological problems. At the end of October, she filed a paper application. She has been stuck since then in a shuffle of documents and on long calls with customer support staff, but she feels no closer to being enrolled.

“There’s no feedback,” she said. “There’s no way to tell if anything has been processed. Time is ticking away.”

More than 32,000 people have been able to complete an application. Only about 1,700 have selected a health plan.

A small number have been able to submit payment information online, bringing them near full enrollment, but the state will not process those payments until Dec. 23.

The Connector Authority will mail invoices starting next week, said executive director Jean Yang. That leaves little time for customers to return a check or credit card information and for the Connector Authority to deliver payments to insurers, with all information needed to create accounts and finalize enrollment.

“Obviously time is tight,” Yang said. “At the same time, we are working extremely closely with the carriers, so that they know what’s coming.”

The $69 million website was built by CGI, which helped develop the much-maligned federal health insurance site, HealthCare.gov. The Health Connector website, by communicating with federal databases and the state Medicaid program, was meant to give users a place where they could find out which insurance subsidies they qualify for. But that function of the website has not worked.

Many people who applied for a subsidy are in a holding pattern, waiting for the Connector Authority to verify their eligibility so they can shop for a plan. Yang said Health Connector staff and contractors are working to find the fixes necessary to make online verification possible and, in the meantime, to identify applicants who need coverage starting Jan. 1.

Many people already receiving state insurance subsidies — through Commonwealth Care, the Medical Security Program for people who are unemployed, and the Insurance Partnership for small business employees — must re-enroll in a new plan, but the state extended the deadline for that group from Dec. 23 until March 24, giving them three more months on their current plans.

As many as 15,000 people who have completed applications do not fall into that category, and an unknown number of them could be uninsured on Jan. 1 if they are not enrolled through the Health Connector.

Yang said CGI has increased the number of people working on the website, and the Connector Authority plans to boost the number of customer service representatives to as many as 190 by the end of December, up from about 65 last month.

“We are not happy with the situation; there’s no question about it,” Yang said. “We look at the vendors critically. We look at ourselves critically. We ask ourselves every day how fast can we make things better.”

Nationally, insurers have expressed frustration that the enrollment records sent by the federal website have been inaccurate. Yang said the state is preparing a back-up plan to deliver data in a spreadsheet or a similar format if the state’s website fails on that front, too.

Typically, insurers need seven to 10 days to set up an account and get insurance cards and an enrollment packet to new customers, said Eric Linzer, spokesman for the Massachusetts Association of Health Plans. But the carriers sometimes receive information about new enrollments up to the last day of the month. The state has not approached carriers about any possibility of missing its deadline for January enrollees, Linzer said.

“The plans are going to be working very hard to make sure that members have what they need for coverage that’s effective Jan. 1,” he said.

But the state may already be short on time, said Bill Fields, a business consultant who works with companies on insurance compliance. Insurers may process the occasional case on the last day of the month, but he figures that the bulk of enrollments must to be sent to carriers by about the end of next week to be processed in time.

“This is a mess,” Fields said. “The sad thing is that the people who are going to get hurt are the people that they’re trying to help.”

Carrie Murray of Abington completed the application process for her family of five on Tuesday. Murray has been buying unsubsidized coverage through the Health Connector since June, when her husband started his own architectural firm. That plan expires this month. After months of grappling with the Health Connector website, Murray finished applying over the phone. Now, she is waiting on an invoice and is still anxious.

“I don’t know if I’m going to get the paperwork in time,” she said. “And, then once I pay the check, will that go through in time.”

Connector administrators need to communicate more directly with the public to explain what challenges they are facing and what they are doing to fix them, said Brian Rosman, research director for Health Care for All, the Boston-based consumer group. But, he said, he is confident that the agency will find ways to keep people like Kamentsky and Murray from falling through the cracks.

“They’ve told us they will, and there’s no reason to think that they won’t,” he said. “They have to.”

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Take a Road Trip in Australia

Travel Writer Fiona Harper explains why jumping in the car and taking a road trip in Australia makes for a fantastic holiday - and shares her favourite Aussie drives. 

Do you remember Jack Nicolson in the movie As Good as it Gets? Playing eccentric, obsessive-compulsive Melvin, he was rather nervous about an impromptu road trip with Carol whom he rather fancied and Simon whom he didn’t. He had prepared a carefully labelled playlist tagged to ‘get things going’ or for use as ‘icebreakers’ as the three of them settled into leather seats and drove out of New York bound for good times and noodle salad. I can’t watch that movie without wishing I too was heading off on an extended road trip.

Growing up in country West Australia, family holidays always included a road trip: we rarely flew anywhere. Three kids on the back seat, plus the dog (sometimes a hitchhiker too). Border collie crossbreed Poochie was always first in the car whenever it looked like Team Harper was hitting the road and was never left behind. Except for that one time, in Whyalla I think it was after crossing the Nullarbor Plain, when Dad somehow managed to drive off without her, creating buckets of hysterical tears from the back seat when we realised. We went back though and thankfully found her, welcoming her return into our back seat bunker with delirious delight.

Usually we’d have a caravan hitched behind us, which back then were all bubble-like curves with oversized windows. Actually the windows were so large I managed to roll right out of one, landing with a thud on the dirt one night while asleep on the top bunk. But that’s a story Mum would rather I not tell (sorry Mum, I have). Later, our family moved to the Pilbara and road trips became more adventurous as we ventured off road, billowing clouds of fine ochre dust coating us, the camper trailer and everything packed inside it. Poochie was still with us, her white coat tinted as red as our feet, swimming alongside us in freshwater streams, clamouring up cliffs, chasing lizards or sleeping exhausted beside the campfire while Mum prepared dinner on the camp stove.

Fast forward 30 years and despite open skies and low cost airlines encouraging us to fly hither and thither, I still love the thrill of hitting the road. Whether that road is paved with asphalt, dirt, gravel or bulldust, it’s the lure of the unknown that is so enticing. No matter whether the verge is bordered by architecturally miserable roadhouses or primeval rainforest, once in the car it’s kind of like having your own private ticket to ride, destination unknown. Sure maps, apps and guidebooks have quashed some of the mystery but they’ve also made driving off into the unknown a whole lot more fun (and safe) too.

So where are my favourite Australian drives? The Great Ocean Road in Victoria remains a firm favourite, so too Queensland’s Captain Cook Highway flanked by reef and rainforest between Cairns and Port Douglas. The Gold Coast Hinterland has the Scenic Rim, all craggy dormant volcanic peaks clad with rainforest, while further north and inland from the Sunshine Coast Steve Irwin Way winds through the Glasshouse Mountains. Out west the Cape to Cape route rambles through award winning vineyards, karri forest and small towns, hugging the coast in parts, rolling through farmland in others. In Tasmania, just about every outing is worthy of ‘road trip’ status the whole state is so damn pretty, but I am rather fond of the Huon Trail south of Hobart that meets up with the car-carrying barge to Bruny Island.

We’re awfully fortunate in Australia to have such splendid road infrastructure. Hitting the road, whether for a few weeks or a few hours really is as good as it gets.

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Paula Patton : Our Girl of the Month

Her career’s on fire. Her husband’s everywhere. Actress Paula Patton, it’s clear, has arrived. It started with her turn in the fourth Mission: Impossible as an agent who can kick ass and rock a ball gown. Then her husband, Robin Thicke—get this, they were high school sweethearts—crafted a song we’re still humming, “Blurred Lines.” (The video is stocked with nearly naked models, but in real life all that Thicke wants to talk about is how hot he is for his gorgeous wife.) Now Patton has a new movie, the romantic comedy Baggage Claim, in which the 37-year-old plays a flight attendant still looking for love. (Don’t feel too bad for her, though, because her search involves Taye Diggs and Djimon Hounsou.) We grabbed some time with Patton to discuss Hollywood style, first-kiss magic—and how many of her guy’s sexy lyrics are really true.

GLAMOUR: You’ve been getting so much red-carpet attention. What’s your style philosophy?

PAULA PATTON: I would really love to be a sixties movie star like Sophia Loren or Brigitte Bardot but with a bohemian twist—I have a little bit of hippie in me. I was the kid who would go climb trees in a dress.

GLAMOUR: How do you deal with the pressure to look a certain way?

PAULA PATTON: I’m an extremist. Either I’m being healthy and organic, or I want a big, juicy In-N-Out burger, you know? And I want it now! It’s certainly not gonna make me a runway model, but it sure makes me happy.

GLAMOUR: You met Robin as a teenager. Do you remember your first kiss?

PAULA PATTON: He sang Jodeci’s “Forever My Lady” to me. He did a full-out R&B onstage performance in his dad’s living room. Then he kissed me. It worked!

GLAMOUR: You guys still seem very passionate. He did say in an interview that he turned you into a bad girl.

PAULA PATTON: He ruined me! Gosh, I hope I’m still a good girl and a bad girl at the same time. And I think that every girl should know the bad girl inside her—and that doesn’t make her bad, you know?

GLAMOUR: So in the “Blurred Lines” video, there’s that balloon message—“Robin Thicke has a big d-ck”…

PAULA PATTON: It’s cool, it’s funny, it’s awesome!

GLAMOUR: Yes, it’s definitely all of those things. But we have to ask: Is it accurate?

PAULA PATTON: Robin’s like, “Listen, if I’m, you know, in the Miami Heat’s locker room, I don’t know where I stand, but.…” But I think that the statement is fairly accurate!

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Health Insurance To Start Jan. 1

With three weeks left in the year, not one of the thousands of Massachusetts residents who need to enroll in new health insurance plans by Jan. 1 has been able to do so through the state insurance marketplace that was revamped to comply with the national Affordable Care Act.

About 126,000 people enrolled in health plans subsidized by the state have until March to choose a new plan and can keep their current coverage until then. But thousands of others are depending on a new plan to start on the first of the year, and some worry that their coverage will not be ready in time. Their anxiety has only been heightened by stubborn technical problems, such as a snag this week that blocked many people from signing in to the website.

Gina Kamentsky of Somerville has been trying to enroll through the Massachusetts Health Connector for weeks. Her insurance plan, bought through her partner’s former employer, expires this month. Because of expensive medications and a doctor’s appointment she cannot miss, the 54-year-old artist from Somerville said she needs coverage in January. Plus, the landmark 2006 state health insurance law, the model for the national law, requires her and most others to have coverage.

Kamentsky was first stymied by the widespread technological problems. At the end of October, she filed a paper application. She has been stuck since then in a shuffle of documents and on long calls with customer support staff, but she feels no closer to being enrolled.

“There’s no feedback,” she said. “There’s no way to tell if anything has been processed. Time is ticking away.”

More than 32,000 people have been able to complete an application. Only about 1,700 have selected a health plan.

A small number have been able to submit payment information online, bringing them near full enrollment, but the state will not process those payments until Dec. 23.

The Connector Authority will mail invoices starting next week, said executive director Jean Yang. That leaves little time for customers to return a check or credit card information and for the Connector Authority to deliver payments to insurers, with all information needed to create accounts and finalize enrollment.

“Obviously time is tight,” Yang said. “At the same time, we are working extremely closely with the carriers, so that they know what’s coming.”

The $69 million website was built by CGI, which helped develop the much-maligned federal health insurance site, HealthCare.gov. The Health Connector website, by communicating with federal databases and the state Medicaid program, was meant to give users a place where they could find out which insurance subsidies they qualify for. But that function of the website has not worked.

Many people who applied for a subsidy are in a holding pattern, waiting for the Connector Authority to verify their eligibility so they can shop for a plan. Yang said Health Connector staff and contractors are working to find the fixes necessary to make online verification possible and, in the meantime, to identify applicants who need coverage starting Jan. 1.

Many people already receiving state insurance subsidies — through Commonwealth Care, the Medical Security Program for people who are unemployed, and the Insurance Partnership for small business employees — must re-enroll in a new plan, but the state extended the deadline for that group from Dec. 23 until March 24, giving them three more months on their current plans.

As many as 15,000 people who have completed applications do not fall into that category, and an unknown number of them could be uninsured on Jan. 1 if they are not enrolled through the Health Connector.

Yang said CGI has increased the number of people working on the website, and the Connector Authority plans to boost the number of customer service representatives to as many as 190 by the end of December, up from about 65 last month.

“We are not happy with the situation; there’s no question about it,” Yang said. “We look at the vendors critically. We look at ourselves critically. We ask ourselves every day how fast can we make things better.”

Nationally, insurers have expressed frustration that the enrollment records sent by the federal website have been inaccurate. Yang said the state is preparing a back-up plan to deliver data in a spreadsheet or a similar format if the state’s website fails on that front, too.

Typically, insurers need seven to 10 days to set up an account and get insurance cards and an enrollment packet to new customers, said Eric Linzer, spokesman for the Massachusetts Association of Health Plans. But the carriers sometimes receive information about new enrollments up to the last day of the month. The state has not approached carriers about any possibility of missing its deadline for January enrollees, Linzer said.

“The plans are going to be working very hard to make sure that members have what they need for coverage that’s effective Jan. 1,” he said.

But the state may already be short on time, said Bill Fields, a business consultant who works with companies on insurance compliance. Insurers may process the occasional case on the last day of the month, but he figures that the bulk of enrollments must to be sent to carriers by about the end of next week to be processed in time.

“This is a mess,” Fields said. “The sad thing is that the people who are going to get hurt are the people that they’re trying to help.”

Carrie Murray of Abington completed the application process for her family of five on Tuesday. Murray has been buying unsubsidized coverage through the Health Connector since June, when her husband started his own architectural firm. That plan expires this month. After months of grappling with the Health Connector website, Murray finished applying over the phone. Now, she is waiting on an invoice and is still anxious.

“I don’t know if I’m going to get the paperwork in time,” she said. “And, then once I pay the check, will that go through in time.”

Connector administrators need to communicate more directly with the public to explain what challenges they are facing and what they are doing to fix them, said Brian Rosman, research director for Health Care for All, the Boston-based consumer group. But, he said, he is confident that the agency will find ways to keep people like Kamentsky and Murray from falling through the cracks.

“They’ve told us they will, and there’s no reason to think that they won’t,” he said. “They have to.”

Read More