Conservative Blogger
Saturday, October 5, 2013
Obamacare Website to be Shut Down for Repairs
Bedeviled by technology glitches that frustrated millions of
consumers, the Obama administration is taking down its health overhaul
website for repairs this weekend.
Enrollment functions of the healthcare.gov site will be unavailable during off-peak hours this weekend, the Health and Human Services Department said Friday. The website will remain open for general information.
Technology problems overwhelmed the launch of new health insurance markets Tuesday, embarrassing the administration just when the health care law was supposed to be introduced to average consumers.
"Americans have seen once again that Obamacare is not ready for prime time," Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, the No. 2 House Republican, said in a statement. "A dysfunctional website is the least of that law's problems."
The administration is putting the best face on the situation, noting the unexpectedly strong interest from millions of consumers. "Americans are excited to look at their options for health coverage, with record demand in the first days of the marketplaces," said the release announcing the planned fixes.
The statement was headlined: "Health Insurance Marketplace Open for Business - Week One Success."
The state-level markets were designed to be the gateway to health insurance for people who don't have access to coverage on the job. Middle-class consumers will be able to buy government-subsidized private plans, while the poor and near-poor will be steered to Medicaid in states agreeing to expand the program.
Federal and state websites experienced problems this week. Some states, including Maryland, have also announced they are scheduling repairs.
Credit card companies, banks and other online service providers regularly take down websites for repairs. That may also become a feature of the new insurance program. The HHS release did not provide a specific schedule for this weekend's repairs.
The federal site, which serves 36 states, drew millions of users, an indication of strong consumer interest. Yet many people were unable to get on the site and others encountered glitches that prevented them from successfully completing their applications.
Many encountered a screen that told them to wait, and they did, sometimes for hours. Refreshing the screen only sent them to the back of the line.
Quite a few got hung up trying to create security questions to protect their accounts. The drop-down menus providing the questions would not populate. As a result, consumers could not advance through the application process and learn if they were eligible for a tax credit to help pay premiums, much less pick a plan.
Some who did make it through were timed out because they took too long comparing plans.
At the end of the first day at most a handful of people had managed to successfully enroll through the federal site.
However, by Friday, enrollments seemed to be picking up — though not yet at desired levels. The administration is not releasing numbers.
"We are pleased that enrollment for health care coverage through the new marketplaces is picking up," the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association said in a statement. "We expect enrollment to continue to increase."
The so-called Blues are major players in the individual insurance market, but some smaller insurers have yet to see any new customers.
By Monday, "there will be significant improvements in the online consumer experience," HHS said.
The upgrades include extra capacity for more users to get into the system, more technicians working round-the-clock to fix problems, and new pathways to get to the application faster. No details were given. Call centers are also getting more staff and HHS said wait times are now down to less than a minute.
The administration previously announced it is adding equipment to handle the high volume of users. Now it looks like software fixes are also needed.
Consumers have until Dec. 15 to enroll for coverage that starts Jan. 1.
Enrollment functions of the healthcare.gov site will be unavailable during off-peak hours this weekend, the Health and Human Services Department said Friday. The website will remain open for general information.
Technology problems overwhelmed the launch of new health insurance markets Tuesday, embarrassing the administration just when the health care law was supposed to be introduced to average consumers.
"Americans have seen once again that Obamacare is not ready for prime time," Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, the No. 2 House Republican, said in a statement. "A dysfunctional website is the least of that law's problems."
The administration is putting the best face on the situation, noting the unexpectedly strong interest from millions of consumers. "Americans are excited to look at their options for health coverage, with record demand in the first days of the marketplaces," said the release announcing the planned fixes.
The statement was headlined: "Health Insurance Marketplace Open for Business - Week One Success."
The state-level markets were designed to be the gateway to health insurance for people who don't have access to coverage on the job. Middle-class consumers will be able to buy government-subsidized private plans, while the poor and near-poor will be steered to Medicaid in states agreeing to expand the program.
Federal and state websites experienced problems this week. Some states, including Maryland, have also announced they are scheduling repairs.
Credit card companies, banks and other online service providers regularly take down websites for repairs. That may also become a feature of the new insurance program. The HHS release did not provide a specific schedule for this weekend's repairs.
The federal site, which serves 36 states, drew millions of users, an indication of strong consumer interest. Yet many people were unable to get on the site and others encountered glitches that prevented them from successfully completing their applications.
Many encountered a screen that told them to wait, and they did, sometimes for hours. Refreshing the screen only sent them to the back of the line.
Quite a few got hung up trying to create security questions to protect their accounts. The drop-down menus providing the questions would not populate. As a result, consumers could not advance through the application process and learn if they were eligible for a tax credit to help pay premiums, much less pick a plan.
Some who did make it through were timed out because they took too long comparing plans.
At the end of the first day at most a handful of people had managed to successfully enroll through the federal site.
However, by Friday, enrollments seemed to be picking up — though not yet at desired levels. The administration is not releasing numbers.
"We are pleased that enrollment for health care coverage through the new marketplaces is picking up," the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association said in a statement. "We expect enrollment to continue to increase."
The so-called Blues are major players in the individual insurance market, but some smaller insurers have yet to see any new customers.
By Monday, "there will be significant improvements in the online consumer experience," HHS said.
The upgrades include extra capacity for more users to get into the system, more technicians working round-the-clock to fix problems, and new pathways to get to the application faster. No details were given. Call centers are also getting more staff and HHS said wait times are now down to less than a minute.
The administration previously announced it is adding equipment to handle the high volume of users. Now it looks like software fixes are also needed.
Consumers have until Dec. 15 to enroll for coverage that starts Jan. 1.
Obamacare: Worst Law Passed in Four Decades Must Be Stopped, Says Stockman
A backlog of Americans tried to get onto the Obamacare exchanges that went live on Tuesday, amid delays and glitches (and high demand/traffic) with the marketplaces.
Meanwhile, a shutdown continues as the GOP tries to defund, delay, or otherwise defang the law.Related: Obamacare Could Mean Steep Rate Hikes in These Four States
David Stockman, former director of the Office of Management and Budget in the Reagan Administration, former member of Congress, and author of “The Great Deformation,” essentially says: bring it on. This, despite Obamacare being the law, passed in 2010 by a president who was re-elected in 2012 (while the candidate who ran on repealing it was defeated), and which has been upheld by the Supreme Court.
So why should it be repealed?
“It is the worst law ever passed in the last four decades by the federal government,” Stockman argues in the video above. “It is a massive entitlement to end all entitlements. It is going to cause a fiscal hemorrhage that is not even yet anticipated. It will tie up one-sixth of GDP in the most monstrous, massive, bureaucratic snarl that you can’t imagine. So therefore this needs to be stopped before it becomes operational.”
Related: Obamacare Could Mean Lower Rates in These Three States
Healthcare consultants like Jon
Kingsdale -- who helped set up some of the state exchanges -- say these
online Obamacare insurance “stores” will affect only the 5% to 10% of Americans who are uninsured
(where they can now shop for insurance with transparency). Americans
who purchase insurance this way qualify for government subsidies so that monthly premiums are not more than 9.5% of their income.
But Stockman expects these numbers to spike, speculating that more companies will follow the lead of GE (GE) and Walgreen (WAG) who have announced they will move employee or retiree healthcare benefits to private exchanges.Once millions of additional Americans are “dumped” onto Obamacare exchanges, Stockman expects the cost to the government of subsidizing (with tax credits) these Americans’ insurance to swell.
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