Adding a child to insurance under Obamacare rules

It’s been a lot of years since I added a baby to our health insurance, but as I recall, we simply called our agent, who then probably filled in the blanks on a form, and like magic the little one had insurance from the minute we supplied the information.  Not today.  Not under Obamacare. Story from Sharyl Attkisson.

“A true story. About a baby who was born on June 4, 2014 A.D., in America. The baby’s name is Hannah Johnson, 8 lbs 14 oz. Green eyes, brown hair and a beauty to behold. When Hannah was born (the very first newborn to be added to the health insurance rolls of our office since healthcare.gov went live) we printed out the Change Form from SelectHealth’s website and faxed it in, just like we had always done. The reason we did it that way was because, to our knowledge, no one told us to do it any other way. So off it went, on June 30, 2014. On July 7th we called in to SelectHealth to make sure that the baby had been added, because neither we nor the insured had received anything confirming that little Hannah was on the policy.
Fortunately though, SelectHealth informed us that they had received our request and that the addition was being processed. They confirmed that “the addition was being processed” because apparently no one ever told the customer service reps at SelectHealth that they would need to add the baby some other way. When a few weeks passed without any confirmation that the baby was indeed insured, Hannah’s mom called into SelectHealth to follow up on the policy endorsement. She continued this process, calling in to her insurance company to inquire about little Hannah’s status, for a couple of months without any resolution. In fact it wasn’t until mid September, a good three months after Hannah’s birth, that SelectHealth told Hannah’s mom that they actually couldn’t change her health insurance policy. That all changes to the policy needed to be routed through healthcare.gov. “  Read the rest of the story here—it gets worse.