The federal health insurance exchange website, HealthCare.gov, will run smoothly by the end of November, Jeffrey Zients, who has been tasked with repairing the site, told reporters Friday, according to a Kaiser Health News report.
HHS has chosen 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 that have plagued the federal exchange site since its launch earlier this month. The errors include people not being able to create accounts on HealthCare.gov, dysfunctional drop down tools and the site crashing due to high traffic, issues that have frustrated consumers and drawn criticism from opponents of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
Consumers must enroll by Dec. 15 to have health insurance coverage starting Jan. 1 under the healthcare reform law. However, open enrollment runs longer to choose a policy and enroll without facing fines under the healthcare reform law. The Obama administration recently pushed back the date it will start imposing penalties on people who don't purchase insurance by six weeks, so consumers can wait until March 31.
Mr. Zients' assurance that the site is fixable was followed by another technical problem: The data center behind HealthCare.gov crashed Sunday night when Verizon's Terremark, which runs the center, had a connectivity issue, according to a report from The Hill. Consumers couldn't apply for coverage or determine their eligibility during the outage, although the site appeared to be functional again Monday morning, according to the report.
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