FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA.: Counselors helping people use the federal government’s online health exchange are giving mixed reviews to the updated site, with some zipping through the application process while others are facing the same old sputters and even crashes.
The Obama administration had promised a vastly improved shopping experience on HealthCare.gov by the end of November, and Monday was the first business day since the date passed.
Brokers and online assisters in Utah say three of every four people successfully signed up for health coverage within an hour of logging in. A state official overseeing North Dakota’s navigators said he had noticed improvements in the site, as did organizations helping people sign up in parts of Alabama and Wisconsin.
But staffers at an organization in South Florida and a hospital group with locations in Iowa and Illinois said they have seen no major improvements from the federal website, which 36 states are relying on.
Amanda Crowell, director of revenue cycle for UnityPoint Health-Trinity, which has four hospitals in Iowa and Illinois, said the organization’s 15 enrollment counselors did not see a marked improvement.
“We had very high hopes for today, but those hopes were very much quashed,” said Crowell. She said out of a dozen attempts online only one person was able to get to the point of plan selection, though the person decided to wait.
The site appeared to generally run smoothly early Monday morning before glitches began slowing people down. By 10 a.m., federal health officials deployed a new queue system that stalls new visitors on a waiting page so that those further along in the process can finish their application with fewer problems.
About 750,000 had visited the site by Monday night — about double the traffic for a typical Monday, according to figures from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Roberta Vann, a certified application counselor at the Hamilton Health Center, in Harrisburg, Pa., said the site worked well for her Monday morning but she became frustrated later when the site went down.
“You can get to a point, but it does not allow you to select any plans, you can’t get eligibility [information]. It stops there,” she said. “The thought of it working as well as it was didn’t last long.”
Despite the Obama administration’s team of technicians working around the clock, it’s not clear if the site will be able to handle the surge of applicants expected by the Dec. 23 deadline to enroll for coverage starting at the beginning of the year. Many navigators also say they’re concerned the bad publicity plaguing the troubled website will prevent people from giving the system another try.
In less than an hour Monday, Starla Redmon, 58, of Paris, Ill., was able to successfully get into a health plan with help from an enrollment counselor. Redmon, who juggles two part-time jobs and has been uninsured for four years, said she was surprised the website worked so well after hearing reports about its problems.
“Everything she typed in, it went through,” said Redmon, who chose a bronze plan and will pay about $75 a month after a tax credit.
