STUMP » Articles » Obamacare Tax Watch: Trouble in California » 4 March 2015, 10:34

It’s about time for me to revisit my Obamacare pissed-off taxpayers prediction, as tax day is creeping ever closer.

Tax forms are supposed to be prepared by January 31, for people to be able to file their taxes in a timely manner. And, of course, for those who need their tax refunds ASAP.

Well, it’s getting ugly in California.

I noticed a couple pieces popping up on Twitchy yesterday, surrounding Obamacare. One was about a glitch in Colorado, and not relevant to my tax issue.

Here are the two tax stories from Twitchy and California:

First:
Why this liberal woman who voted for Obama twice no longer supports Obamacare

While this woman did make her story in tweets, she also posted an open letter to Obama.

But as of today I’ve stopped making excuses for you and this system. It’s time to get your shit together. If I knew then, what I know now, I would have foregone insurance and taken the tax penalty. In fact, I’d rather be dead and broke than have to participate in Covered California’s health care exchange.

I know that seems drastic but let me tell you why.

For the past few weeks I’ve been dealing with this 1095-A issue. You see, I never received it and as you know I need it to file my taxes. Being a law abiding citizen and all, I typically like to file my taxes on time. Being of German descent, I also like to be on time.

I called Covered California in January and was assured I’d get it soon. But alas, it never arrived. So, I spent my entire afternoon (and part of yesterday afternoon), on hold with different folks at Kaiser and Covered California.

At first I wasn’t worried. I mean, a) I’m insured. b) I have several letters from Covered California congratulating me on being insured. c) I have emails from Kaiser and Covered California confirming payment for insurance. d) I have my credit card bill that also shows that I, in fact, paid for insurance. And e) I’m insured!!!

It gets worse from there. You should read the whole saga.

As per a prior post, this bureaucratic hell is more and more like Brazil than any of the scary dystopias like The Hunger Games or 1984.

You should read her conclusion:

It saddens me to say this, but I no longer believe that the government should mandate health care. It’s not because I’ve abandoned the basic principles behind health care reform. Quite the contrary. But a great idea, is just an idea, if you can’t execute. And the government has proven time and time again, it can’t execute. So I’m over it until someone figures it out.

I had a similar revelation when I was in my 20s. Fancy that.

One of the things I realized: I never want to work for government.

Here’s story two, from this morning:
Customer service hell: Californians are fed up with their Obamacare

Interestingly, these tweets go back to January. Some of them have to do with enrollment and getting charged, but a lot are about their errant 1095 tax forms.

I decided to check out media coverage vs. twitter coverage.

I did a google news search on ‘Covered California 1095’ and got 1330 search results.

On twitter: @CoveredCA 1095 gets me… well, I don’t know how many results. Some are just tweeting the news stories from before.

But this is the point: it’s kind of interesting how people can route around normal media to get their complaints heard in public. But still, my prediction was about mainstream media coverage of pissed-off taxpayers due to Obamacare.

That’s not what the media are interested in today.

Today’s Obamacare story is about the Supreme Court arguments in the case that could yank away Obamacare subsidies in many states. – 360 stories, so far, from today.

If the common story is how disruptive and destructive it would be if subsidies were yanked, it will not help matters to feature tweets like this one:

coveredca</a> You&#39;re a mess! You didn&#39;t create a 1095-A for me! Rep can&#39;t fix &amp; now I have to dispute a form I don&#39;t have…which takes 60 days?!</p>&mdash; Lauren (laurenfisch) February 23, 2015

(and that’s in a state where they don’t have to worry about subsidies being taken away… because the exchange is run by the state of California.)

Seems to me that Obamacare is pretty damn disruptive as it is.