Politics

Parents unable to register newborns for Obamacare on HealthCare.gov

Katie McHugh Associate Editor
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Babies born in 2014 may not be covered under Obamacare — since as far as HealthCare.gov is concerned, they don’t even exist.

A missing feature on the glitch-plagued website makes it impossible for parents eligible for Obamacare to update their health insurance information to include newborns, Fox News reports. Parents must instead contact their insurer directly and wait for health-care officials to piece together yet another stopgap measure to address the oversight. In their rush to battle bad press during HealthCare.gov’s disastrous rollout, officials forgot to include the crucial feature.

Users’ Obamacare applications are essentially frozen in time. They cannot update their profiles to reflect marriages, divorces, newborn children, deaths in the family, moves to another residence, a new job or a change in income. Health-care officials claimed that the option to add significant life changes affecting coverage will be “available later,” but gave no hint of a due date, according to a statement from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services from Dec. 31.

Consumers must wait around until HealthCare.gov gives them the option to update their information, but whether or not they will be alerted to the change is unclear.

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