NEW YORK: Up to 166K people facing literal disaster in 12 days due to bureaucratic f*ckups.

IMPORTANT: If you're enrolled via Health Republic of New York and have questions about your situation, call this hotline: 855-329-8899

I don't know who's to blame for this. It could be the management of the about-to-be-defunct Health Republic of NY CO-OP. It could be someone at the NY State of Health ACA exchange. It could be someone at the NY Dept. of Financial Services. Perhaps it's all three.

What I do know is that this situation, which was already unacceptable several days ago...

OK, this is definitely not good. As bad as having 10 CO-OPs go out of business this year is, until now the saving grace has been that at least they were all supposed to be up, running and covering medical claims through the end of December, allowing current enrollees plenty of time (until December 15th or 23rd depending on the state) to move to other coverage starting in January.

What this announcement means is that current Health Republic of NY enrollees will only be covered through the end of November, not December.

...appears to have just gotten infinitely worse, assuming that Liz Jackson's situation is accurate and widespread:

11/2/15 UPDATE: There was a series of Marketplace outages today meaning New Yorkers struggled to get logged on and start shopping. It is also becoming increasingly evident that most Health Republic insurees have yet to be notified they need to sign up for new coverage in just 13 days.

The plan is discontinuing 11/30, not 12/31.

I haven't heard anything about any marketplace outages happening yesterday. I assume she's referring specifically to the NY exchange. The bigger concern here is that at least some of the thousands of people losing their coverage in less than 4 weeks may still not be aware of it.

11/3/15 UPDATE: I am now logged onto the New York Marketplace. I found a plan that could work, it’s an Oscar plan as I assumed would be the case. Unfortunately while both of my doctors assure me they accept Oscar, I was unable to locate either of them in Oscar’s doctor search.

Furthermore, I still have not received official notification from Health Republic, which means the majority of Health Republic insurees remain unaware they need to select a new plan in 12 days. I thought the Marketplace would have a warning, but this was the best I got:

The most recent update is specific to Ms. Jackson, but presumably impacts at least a few other New Yorkers as well:

11/3/15 Another UPDATE: This is a fiasco. I just spoke with my contact at New York State of Health. She informed me I was no longer eligible for subsidies on any marketplace plans (I receive $285 a month in subsidies because I am on SSD). I became Medicare eligible on 6/1 and turned down Medicare Part B. At the time I was happy with my Health Republic plan and didn’t want to lose my medical team. My doctors aren’t Medicare providers.

In order for me to receive my subsidies, I need to get rid of Medicare Part A. I was forced onto Medicare Part A. And to come off means I will need to also get rid of my Social Security Disability.

To back onto Medicare part B, I will need to pay a steep penalty because I declined it in the first place. But my doctors don’t accept Medicare.

I need help.

This is the letter which was supposed to have been sent out to every Health Republic of NY enrollee. However, from what Ms. Jackson is saying, it sounds like an awful lot of people either haven't received it yet or, if they did, didn't recognize the importance of this development.

Health Republic does have the notice posted on the home page of their website...but the NY State of Health site does not currently have anything posted about it on either their home page or, for that matter, their News page (they do have the original closure notice from late September posted, but that's outdated; it still says that current enrollees are covered until December 31st and have until December 15 to choose new coverage; there's nothing about the new development cutting things off on November 30 and requiring a November 15th deadline to switch).

Meanwhile, the NY Dept. of Financial Services (including Insurance regulation) does have the official "Nov. 30th" notice posted here...but there's nothing on the NY state government home page or even the NY DFS home page.

In addition to all of these things, those letters had better have been sent out already, and the exchange and/or Health Republic itself should be calling individual members to let them know the situation if they aren't already.

THIS NEEDS TO BE FIXED, RIGHT NOW.