ObamaCare problems mounting
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10/18/13 01:20 PM ET
The problems for the main ObamaCare enrollment portal are going from bad to worse.
ObamaCare's online marketplace is reportedly creating a mess for insurance companies by approving error-ridden applications, the latest in a series of problems that threaten to dampen enrollment under the healthcare law.
Among the small number of people who have successfully purchased coverage, many have filed out duplicate enrollments, misreported family members or left data fields empty, insurers told The Wall Street Journal.
These errors were attributed to flaws in the design of the online enrollment system, which does not easily allow users to fix their mistakes.
The defective sign-ups are the latest breakdown for healthcare.gov, the online portal that uninsured people in 36 states can use to purchase insurance coverage.
Ever since its Oct. 1 rollout, the federal site has been dogged by
software problems that have prevented nearly all users from shopping for
health insurance.
While bottleneck issues had begun to ease, users are still struggling to navigate the system.
The flawed data received by insurance companies underscores the daunting challenge facing federal health officials as they seek to repair a site that even supporters of the healthcare law have declared a “disaster.”
White House press secretary Jay Carney on Thursday said President Obama is “not happy” with the site’s debut even as he rejected calls for the resignation of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.
Republicans are working to shine a spotlight on the troubled ObamaCare system now that the fight over government funding and the debt ceiling is over.
Upton's panel will hold a hearing on the rollout for Oct. 28 as Republicans continue to push the HHS to release more information about the enrollment numbers in the marketplaces.
The department has said it will report the figures monthly, but critics suspect the administration is refusing to release the numbers because they will reveal just how disastrous the launch has been.
The consulting firm Kantar US Insights said that only about 36,000 people — or less than 1 percent of initial visitors to healthcare.gov — successfully enrolled in the first week.
And an analysis conducted for The Wall Street Journal found that just over one-quarter of the 209,000 people who registered on healthcare.gov on Monday and Tuesday bought health insurance.
The HHS has been hoping that at least 500,000 people would sign up for coverage by the end of October, according to memos obtained by The Associated Press.
While Democrats have yet to join Republicans in calling for Sebelius to step aside, some former administration officials say heads should roll at the department.
Some of the criticism is being directed at the chief contractor for healthcare.gov, CGI Federal.
As of May, according to NBC News, the company had spent $196 million on the website and increased the ceiling price tag to $292 million. The cost could continue to rise as programmers work around the clock to repair the system’s problems.
ObamaCare's online marketplace is reportedly creating a mess for insurance companies by approving error-ridden applications, the latest in a series of problems that threaten to dampen enrollment under the healthcare law.
Among the small number of people who have successfully purchased coverage, many have filed out duplicate enrollments, misreported family members or left data fields empty, insurers told The Wall Street Journal.
These errors were attributed to flaws in the design of the online enrollment system, which does not easily allow users to fix their mistakes.
The defective sign-ups are the latest breakdown for healthcare.gov, the online portal that uninsured people in 36 states can use to purchase insurance coverage.
While bottleneck issues had begun to ease, users are still struggling to navigate the system.
The flawed data received by insurance companies underscores the daunting challenge facing federal health officials as they seek to repair a site that even supporters of the healthcare law have declared a “disaster.”
"So far, the Affordable Care Act's launch has been a failure. Not 'troubled.' Not 'glitchy.' A failure," Washington Post columnist Ezra Klein wrote this week.
White House press secretary Jay Carney on Thursday said President Obama is “not happy” with the site’s debut even as he rejected calls for the resignation of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.
"The accountability the president seeks today is the accountability that comes from those who are working on implementation," Carney told reporters.
Republicans are working to shine a spotlight on the troubled ObamaCare system now that the fight over government funding and the debt ceiling is over.
"The American people deserve to know what caused this mess," Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, told CNN. "Delays and technical failures have reached epidemic proportions."
Upton's panel will hold a hearing on the rollout for Oct. 28 as Republicans continue to push the HHS to release more information about the enrollment numbers in the marketplaces.
The department has said it will report the figures monthly, but critics suspect the administration is refusing to release the numbers because they will reveal just how disastrous the launch has been.
The consulting firm Kantar US Insights said that only about 36,000 people — or less than 1 percent of initial visitors to healthcare.gov — successfully enrolled in the first week.
And an analysis conducted for The Wall Street Journal found that just over one-quarter of the 209,000 people who registered on healthcare.gov on Monday and Tuesday bought health insurance.
The HHS has been hoping that at least 500,000 people would sign up for coverage by the end of October, according to memos obtained by The Associated Press.
While Democrats have yet to join Republicans in calling for Sebelius to step aside, some former administration officials say heads should roll at the department.
“When they get it fixed, I hope they fire some people who were in charge of making sure this thing was supposed to work,” former White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told MSNBC.
“We knew there were going to be some glitches. But these are glitches that go, quite frankly, way beyond the pale of what should be expected.”
Some of the criticism is being directed at the chief contractor for healthcare.gov, CGI Federal.
As of May, according to NBC News, the company had spent $196 million on the website and increased the ceiling price tag to $292 million. The cost could continue to rise as programmers work around the clock to repair the system’s problems.
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