The online health insurance marketplaces that are the centerpiece of the Affordable Care Act are off to a rocky start.
In the first 2 weeks of operation, consumers complained about problems using the federally run website – healthcare.gov. They reported trouble getting on the website as well as creating the accounts needed to enroll in health plans.
Rep. Michael Burgess
Health and Human Services (HHS) department officials have acknowledged what they call "glitches" in the system, but said they are working on improving the website as quickly as possible, often through overnight maintenance sessions.
"We have greatly reduced, and even eliminated, wait times at the registration stage, and more people are actively shopping and comparing plans," HHS spokeswoman Joanne Peters said.
The agency is also offering other options for signing up for insurance. Consumers can use the HHS call center (1-800-318-2596) to apply for and enroll over the phone. They can also use the website’s Find Local Help feature to find someone who will work with them in person.
HHS officials cite heavy demand as the major reason for the website’s poor performance. In the first 10 days of operation, the site had 14.6 million unique visitors, according to the agency.
But some technology experts said the problem may go deeper. Now GOP lawmakers in the House and the Senate are launching investigations into how the website was designed and tested, and what problems the administration detected in the months leading up to the Oct. 1 launch.
Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Tex.), who serves on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said HHS officials need to come to Congress and explain what is happening with the federally run exchanges.
"Members of the administration need to come to the Energy and Commerce Committee and start telling us the truth about this information architecture," Rep. Burgess said. "Taxpayers have spent money – a lot of money – to build these sites. If they’ve been sold a pig in a poke, they need to know."
But while the federally run exchanges have been under fire, the state-run health exchanges have, for the most part, been running more smoothly.
Access Health Connecticut, for example, reported that it had more than 126,000 visitors to its website and has processed almost 2,000 applications. In California, about a million people visited the state’s exchange site in the first 5 days. California consumers submitted 40,000 applications. About 16,000 of those were completed, according to the state.
Officials in Kentucky reported that its exchange site, called Kynect, had 4 million page views in the first 10 days and about 9,000 enrollees. And in Washington state, nearly 10,000 residents had enrolled in either health plans or Medicaid coverage through the state’s exchange.
Currently, there are no data on how many Americans have purchased health insurance through the federally run exchanges. While HHS has released information on traffic to the healthcare.gov site, it will not release enrollment data until November. After that, the administration plans to provide monthly reports.
Individuals have until Dec. 15 to apply for coverage that begins on Jan. 1, 2014. But consumers can continue to enroll in plans through the end of March 2014.
Alicia Ault contributed to this report.