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What to Do If You Can't Get Onto the Obamacare Website

by — Last updated: 2013-11-06 in Healthy Living

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It took me five tries taking three hours over six days to get to the first sign up page for the Affordable Care Act. Then the system confused me, I think, with a cousin 20 years older than I who passed away in Ohio in 2011. But signup is possible still

The healthcare.gov website isn't the only way you can sign up for Obamacare. 

But the first thing to consider is whether you need to use the healthcare.gov site at all.

Some states (plus the District of Columbia) are running their own exchanges. Some states are letting the federal government run their exchange this year, but will run their own exchange next year. And some states are not participating in the program at all.

Read More: Fifteen Out-Right Lies About Obamacare

If you live in California, Colorado, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Idaho, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, or Washington state, you don't use healthcare.gov. (In New Mexico, you use healthcare.gov this year and bewellnm.org next year.) You need to apply on your state's website or you call your state's offices or you send a written application to your state.

Otherwise, you need to apply through healthcare.gov or use one of the following options:

  • Sign up by snail mail. A link to the pdf for Application for Health Coverage & Help Paying Costs (Short Form) is listed below. Print out the form, fill it out, and mail it in--but be aware that it may be months before you here back. The same system that is balking at taking information online is being used for data entry from this form.
  • Sign up by phone. The toll free number for the national health insurance marketplace is 1-800-318-2596, which actually does not, despite what many news outlets are saying, spell out a four-letter obscenity (unless you ignore the 1). As of October 16, calls to this number are going through smoothly and are being answered in under half an hour.
  • Interact with a federal outreach worker. The federal government has hired outreach workers to help with sign up in the states that are not running their own exchanges, although this program has also begun with its share of glitches. Some states with anti-Obama governors have even issued executive orders forbidding Affordable Care Act "navigators" to approach people who need health insurance in community clinics with state funding.
But whatever you do, don't pay a fee to sign up for health insurance. Don't fall victim to a scam. The Healthcare Exchange isn't going to give you a free phone, as one scammer suggested, for signing up for health insurance.

Anybody who offers you an "incentive" to sign up for health insurance is probably just trying to get your personal information for criminal purposes. You'll know it's the real thing if it's a major pain to sign up.