Glitches slow launch of federal health marketplace

Source: Dayton Daily News, OhioOct.mini storage 02--The launch Tuesday of Ohio's online health insurance marketplace was interrupted by technical glitches attributed to an unexpectedly high volume of visitors to the HealthCare.gov website, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services officials said.By 4 p.m., more than 2.8 million people had visited the government's main portal for enrollment in Ohio and 35 other states with federally-facilitated marketplaces. About two thirds of states deferred to the federal government to set up and run their marketplaces, while the remainder chose to build their own marketplaces.By comparison, marketplace traffic was more than seven times the number of visitors to Medicare.gov at any one time, officials said.In addition, more than 81,000 calls were placed to the health insurance marketplace call center, and 60,000 Web chats had been requested by late afternoon Tuesday.But visitors had trouble creating personal accounts to log onto HealthCare.gov, and those who did manage to log on were met with long delays, error messages and a largely unresponsive website."As with any new product launch there are going to be glitches as things unfold,'' said Marilyn Tavenner, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, a division of the health and human services department.The first-day computer malfunctions come as President Barack Obama's signature legislation is facing both high expectations from supporters who see this as a way to provide coverage to uninsured Americans and heavy criticism from GOP and Tea Party congressional leaders who say the law is defective and will hurt businesses.The three-year long battle over the biggest expansion in coverage in nearly five decades culminated in a shutdown of the federal government that also began Tuesday.The federal government's shutdown will have no immediate effect on the insurance marketplaces that are the backbone of the law, because they operate with money that isn't subject to the annual budget wrangling in Washington.Major online rushTavenner compared the glitches to similar hiccups that emerged during the 2006 launch of the Medicare prescription drug program, and pointed out that people still have plenty of time to enroll: "Keep in mind that while this is the first day you can sign up, it is certainly not the last."The initial enrollment period for the marketplaces will last through March 31, with coverage beginning Jan. 1 for those who enroll by Dec. 15. The marketplaces offer subsidized health insurance coverage to small businesses with less than 50 employees and individuals with low-to-moderate incomes who do not get coverage from their employer or another source, such as Medicaid or Medicare.In the first year, more than 160,000 Ohioans are expected to sign up for health insurance coverage through the marketplace, established by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Nationwide, about 7 million Americans are expected to sign up for cov迷你倉rage through their states' marketplaces for insurance coverage next year.Under the law, health insurance companies can no longer deny coverage to someone with a pre-existing medical condition and cannot impose lifetime caps on coverage. They also must cover a list of essential services, ranging from mental health treatment to maternity care.Tavenner could not say exactly how many people had successfully enrolled in the marketplaces on Tuesday, but said her department would be releasing enrollment figures at regular intervals."It takes time to pull accurate data and information together," she said.'It's frustrating'Still, she said she could confirm that people in most states had successfully completed the enrollment process, and she expected most issues with the website to be resolved by the end of the day Tuesday.That offers little solace to Ellen Snyder of Oakwood, whose job at Dayton Children's Hospital was eliminated about a month ago and is now looking for affordable coverage to replace her employer-sponsored health insurance."I tried multiple times (to log onto the marketplace) this afternoon, gave up and went out to mow my grass," Snyder said. "It's frustrating."John Johnson, 42, of Middletown, an unemployed construction worker, spent about two hours Tuesday unsuccessfully trying to purchase insurance. "It won't let me go all the way through the process," he said. "When I sign in, they ask for your zip code, and then it goes blank."Johnson is doubly anxious because, with the government shutdown, he fears he will lose his unemployment check. "I'm a bird sitting on both sides of the fence," he said.He isn't giving up on buying insurance, however. "I thought it would be like this the first day, that everybody and their brother would be on this site," Johnson said.He said he plans to try again early Wednesday morning -- sometime after midnight -- in the hopes that "everyone else will be in bed."State-operated sites also experienced glitches. Rhode Island's site opened as scheduled, but was quickly overwhelmed by visitors and went down. A spokesman for the New York Department of Health blamed problems with the 2 million visits to the website in the first 90 minutes after its launch. Washington state's marketplace used Twitter to thank users for their patience.Exchange officials in Colorado said their website would not be fully functional for the first month, although consumers will be able to get help applying for government subsidies during that time.Connecticut seemed to be a bright spot. Access Health CT sent out a tweet shortly before noon Tuesday, confirming the marketplace logged 10,000 visitors in the first three hours of operation and 22 enrollments. A family of three was the first to sign up for coverage.The Associated Press contributed to this report.Copyright: ___ (c)2013 Dayton Daily News (Dayton, Ohio) Visit the Dayton Daily News (Dayton, Ohio) at .daytondailynews.com Distributed by MCT Information Services文件倉