People Are Signing Up For The ACA In Hordes; One Senator Wants To Extend Open Enrollment

There is no denying the fact that the Affordable Care Act’s (aka Obamacare) federal exchanges have had some hiccups, glitches, and major problems.  On October 1st the exchanges went live and millions of people flocked to the web to sign up.  In fact so many people went to Healthcare.Gov that the servers could not handle the volume of traffic and crashed.

Since the exchanges opened up there have been two very different responses to the website crashes.  Republicans are quick to start conspiracy theories that it is all Obama’s fault.

“We are concerned that the administration required contractors to change course late in the implementation process to conceal ObamaCare’s effect on increasing health insurance premiums,” 

The people who live in reality understand that the high volume of traffic was too much for the servers to handle.  People were jumping at the chance to sign up and save money on healthcare.

“The opening of state- and federal-run insurance marketplaces Tuesday saw a combination of huge interest and balky technology that led to a series of glitches, delays and even crashes that marred the first hours of the centerpiece of President Obama's health law.

‘Some of the delays were due to high volume. About 2.8 million people visited the federal website HealthCare.gov since midnight,’ said Marilyn Tavenner, director of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.” (USA Today)

Nobody on the right or the left is denying the website has had problems. However every day since the rollout the updates to the equipment have been made. There has also been a decline in the number of people who are going to the site every day.  Combined that all together and you have a smoother, faster, easy to navigate website that is working for everyone.

Senator Shaheen (D-NH) has raised concern that due to the errors in the rollout there may not be enough time for all Americans to sign up before the open enrollment ends.  Shaheen is urging the White House to extend the open enrollment period past March 31, 2014 in order to give Americans more time to obtain coverage. Reports indicate that approximately 65,000 Granite Staters could buy insurance on the New Hampshire marketplace next year.

In a letter sent to President Barack Obama (below) this afternoon, Shaheen suggested extending open enrollment to “provide greater flexibility for the American people seeking to access health insurance.”  Shaheen also asked that the White House to clarify how the “individual responsibility penalty will be administered and enforced” in light of the website’s difficulties.