Health enrollment deadline approaches

The clock is ticking for the health exchange enrollment deadline, but many people still aren’t sure about the affordable care act.

Originally Monday was the deadline for people who wanted their health coverage by Jan 1., but the federal government extended the deadline to Tuesday, as long as applicants started the process by Jan. 23.

Kymberly Lewis was like thousands of other Americans who attempted to enroll on the new health exchange back in October, but after months of glitches and bugs, success finally came with Idaho’s health exchange site, Your Health Idaho.

“It was just really slow and it wouldn’t acknowledge me. It was really bad, the horror stories you hear about people trying to sign up (points and laughs) I was one of them,” said lewis.

Soon the nightmare would end for Lewis. For the first time in years she and her husband have health insurance.

“In order for us to get insurance, it was twice our mortgage,” she said.

They thought going without health insurance would be fine since Lewis was pretty healthy, until a motorcycle accident turned into hundreds of dollars in surgeries.

“That sucked through our entire life savings, so the next time something happens, I would have had to file bankruptcy. That scared me and that kept me away from the doctor when I should have gone,” she said.

Even with success stories like Lewis’ and the president’s efforts to promote the act, (according to a poll by CNN) 62 percent of Americans still oppose it. Regardless, they have until March 31 before penalties begin.