Hospital staff in Northern Virginia are turning away sick people on a frigid Thursday morning because they can't determine whether their Obamacare insurance plans are in effect. Patients in a close-in DC suburb who think they've signed up for new insurance plans are struggling to show their December enrollments are in force, and health care administrators aren't taking their word for it. In place of quick service and painless billing, these Virginians are now facing the threat of sticker-shock that comes with bills they can't afford. 'They had no idea if my insurance was active or not!' a coughing Maria Galvez told MailOnline outside the Inova Healthplex facility in the town of Springfield.
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MailOnline spoke with patients who were told they would have to pay their bills in full if they couldn't prove they had insurance
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One was faced with a $3,000 hospital room charge and opted to leave the hospital after experiencing chest pains
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'Should I be in the hospital? Probably,' she said
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Another, coughing in the cold, walked out without receiving a needed chest x-ray
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Consumers face sticker-shock from medical costs under the new Obamacare system, made worse if they can't prove they're insured
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As many as one-third of new enrollees' applications have seen problems when the government transmits them to insurance companies
MailOnline spoke to patients outside hospitals in @placeholder's Washington, D.C. suburbs, many of them confused about the state of their insurance coverage
It's unlikely that a valid insurance card would have changed @placeholder' fortunes, however.