I got my first unfortunate lesson in the FAIL of Obamacare in September 2014.

I felt an unexplained pain/scratchiness in my eye, and wanted it checked out. My Obamacare plan started in March 2014, and I hadn't had to use it during those first 6 months, so this was the first time. I used Anthem's website to look up an opthamologist in my area, and found one fairly close by.

I got to my appointment, waited for 30 minutes, and then the front desk called me over to give me the bad news.

They didn't take Obamacare plans.



They took all Anthem Blue Cross group plans, but not Obamacare. Didn't matter if I had a cheap Obamacare plan or a really expensive one, they just didn't take it, even though it was Anthem Blue Cross. They demanded $150 up front to be seen. I lol'd at them and walked out.

I then sat in my car and went down the list of other doctors in the area on the Blue Cross site. I called each one. Again, I kept getting the same answer: "No, we don't take ACA plans."

Finally I found three, but they were all terrible. One was a Doctor of Osteopathy -- the dreaded DO. No way. The other two were educated in foreign countries notorious for having medical schools aimed at students who weren't able to qualify for medical school in the US. Again, no way.

So I did nothing.

My eye problem went away by itself a few days later.

But that was my intro to Obamacare, despite paying about 60% higher in premiums than I had the year before Obamacare took effect.

Turns out that this was a common experience, and a class action lawsuit was filed.

Unfortunately, I won't get anything from it, because you need to have gotten actual treatment to get a settlement. That's bullshit, because this both wasted my time and misled me into signing up for the Blue Cross plan in the first place, falsely believing there to be lots of doctors in my area that took it. I was stuck on the plan until the end of 2014, at which point I switched companies.

But anyway, if you did find yourself in this situation and paid for the out-of-network care, go to http://www.FelserAnthemBlueCrossACASettlement.com (lol at that URL) and you'll get some money, supposedly.