People trying to enroll in health plans through HealthCare.gov should anticipate further outages during the next four weeks as HHS and its contractors work to repair the site, according to a report from The Hill.
The continued crashes are an expected part of the improvement process, CMS Communications Director Julie Bataille told reporters during a conference call, according to the report. She said federal officials have succeeded in making several changes already, such as improvements to the previously flawed data sent to health insures on behalf of applicants. That information now has accurate dates, times, consumer contact information and health plan identification numbers.
Since it launched last month, the federal exchange site has experienced numerous technical errors such as people not being able to create accounts and crashes due to high traffic. At separate congressional hearings last week, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and CMS Administrator Marilyn Tavenner both apologized for the glitch-ridden rollout.
Ms. Tavenner told lawmakers CMS is working around the clock to fix the problems, and Jeffrey Zients — who has been tasked with repairing the site — has said it will run smoothly by the end of November. HHS chose Mr. Zients — who will become the chief White House economic adviser next year — to provide advice, assessments and recommendations as part of a "tech surge" intended to address the numerous technical problems.
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