I’m not prone to political rants, especially online. To say this, however, obviously means that a political rant is forthcoming.

It is a sign of a deeply broken system that a relatively tech-savvy person could inadvertently enroll his family in public assistance. I created an Obamacare account last year to check prices for health insurance. Our family was among those who liked its coverage, but couldn’t keep it. Because of the requirements of the new law, our monthly premium was going up about $150, which was beyond what we could swing. Thus, the visit to healthcare.gov (which remains broken; when I log in, I invariably am greeted with “Error ID:500.000888,” which allows me to do nothing else).

All things considered, we opted to go without coverage this year. In nearly every scenario, we would come out ahead financially. This remained true even with the birth of our third child, who was delivered (quite expertly, with the aid of a midwife) at home.

Here’s my complaint: apparently, the process of creating a healthcare.gov account (with financial information, etc.) is also counted as an application for public assistance, if you qualify. And I created my account in the early days of Obamacare, when you were required to enter your information even to be able to see the prices. So my wife and children are now enrolled in Medicaid.

This was never my intent. I’m not debating the merits of these programs themselves, but simply asserting that, by the kindness of God, our family is not in position to need this help, even if we meet the qualifications. It simply shouldn’t happen that a person can acquire a DHS case worker for his family by accident. That is a bad system.

It further occurs to me that we are likely among the statistics of those who have been helped to get insurance because of Obamacare, despite the facts that 1) we had workable insurance prior to that law and 2) I didn’t even realize that we had been enrolled in Medicaid and 3) that I never wanted to be enrolled in Medicaid.

OK, just wanted to get that off my chest.