Quitting ObamaCare Takes Woman 6 Weeks

As Medicaid expansion makes headway
By Neal Colgrass,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 20, 2014 6:58 PM CST
Woman: I Lost 6 Weeks Ditching ObamaCare
This photo of part of the HealthCare.gov website is photographed in Washington, in this Nov. 29, 2013 file photo.   (AP Photo/Jon Elswick, File)

Signing up for ObamaCare wasn't easy for Missouri resident Lesli Hill, but getting off the program was a nightmare. When she found an individual insurance plan with better benefits, she tried unenrolling from ObamaCare and spent 6 weeks talking to operators, using online chat, and sending emails, Hill tells Fox News. When she thought she had unenrolled, the $950-a-month premium was taken from her bank account. Only when she finally drove to her insurance company in Kansas City did someone there help her unenroll on a federal line.

"It's consumed my whole life," Hill said. "I felt like I'd slipped into a parallel universe. ... It's just as hard to go off as it is to get on." Meanwhile, one unsung benefit of Obamacare is the number of poor Americans signing up for expanded Medicaid—most of whom were previously uninsured, the New York Times reports. In West Virginia alone, more than 75,000 have enrolled in the program. "I got to the point when I decided I just didn’t want to be here anymore," said a West Virginia woman who suffered renal failure after she couldn't get consistent medication. Now enrolled in Medicaid, "the heavy thing that was pressing on me is gone." (More ObamaCare stories.)

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