'They had no idea if my insurance was active or not!': Obamacare confusion reigns as frustrated patients walk out of hospitals without treatment

Hospital staff in Northern Virginia are turning away sick people on a frigid Thursday morning because they can't determine whether their Obamacare insurance plans are in effect.

Patients in a close-in DC suburb who think they've signed up for new insurance plans are struggling to show their December enrollments are in force, and health care administrators aren't taking their word for it.

In place of quick service and painless billing, these Virginians are now facing the threat of sticker-shock that comes with bills they can't afford. 

'They had no idea if my insurance was active or not!' a coughing Maria Galvez told MailOnline outside the Inova Healthplex facility in the town of Springfield.

She was leaving the building without getting a needed chest x-ray. 

'The people in there told me that since I didn't have an insurance card, I would be billed for the whole cost of the x-ray,' Galvez said, her young daughter in tow. 'It's not fair – you know, I signed up last week like I was supposed to.'

The x-ray's cost, she was told, would likely be more than $500.

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Going home: One patient left the hospital without being admitted for chest pains after she was warned she might have to pay full-price. She asked MailOnline not to publish a photograph of her face

MailOnline spoke to patients outside hospitals in Virginia's Washington, D.C. suburbs, many of them confused about the state of their insurance coverage

Galvez said she enrolled in a Carefirst Blue Cross bronze plan at a cost of about $450 per month through healthcare.gov, three days before Christmas.

'No one has sent me a bill,' she said.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius testified in a December 11 congressional hearing that the federal government can't say how many new enrollees have written checks for their first month's premiums.

MailOnline spoke with patients who were told they would have to pay their bills in full if they couldn't prove they had insurance

One was faced with a $3,000 hospital room charge and opted to leave the hospital after experiencing chest pains

'Should I be in the hospital? Probably,' she said

Another, coughing in the cold, walked out without receiving a needed chest x-ray

Consumers face sticker-shock from medical costs under the new Obamacare system, made worse if they can't prove they're insured

As many as one-third of new enrollees' applications have seen problems when the government transmits them to insurance companies

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2532869/They-no-idea-insurance-active-not-At-Virginia-hospitals-Obamacare-confusion-reigns-frustrated-patients-walk-out.html#ixzz2pOL06won
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