Politics
HealthCare.gov website overhauled – crucial weekend as subscribers begin to access service
Wu said HealthCare.gov is working better but any remaining problems lie much deeper within the site.
Questions remain about the site’s ability to direct payments to private insurance companies when consumers enroll in their plans. Portions of the system handling those functions are still being built, officials say.
“The real tests are: Were my premium payment and subsidy accurately calculated? Am I getting the coverage I signed up for? If my income situation changes, will the reconciliation occur in a timely fashion?” said Rick Howard, a research director at technology consultant Gartner.
Zients was set to brief reporters on the site’s progress on Sunday. If the website does not work for the “vast majority” of visitors this weekend as the administration has promised, uninsured Americans could face problems getting coverage by an initial December 23 deadline. It also could create ripples that extend to the 2014 elections when control of the U.S. House of Representatives, now dominated by Republicans, and the Senate, where Democrats have a majority, will be up for grabs.
Congressional Democrats facing re-election already have shown signs of distancing themselves from the president and his healthcare program. If the website does not show significant improvement soon, some Democrats – particularly the dozen U.S. senators from states led by conservative Republicans and who are up for re-election next year – might call for extending Obamacare’s final March 31 enrollment deadline for 2014.
That would delay the fines that are mandated by the law for those who do not have insurance by that date, a scenario that insurers say would destabilize the market. It also would fuel Republicans’ arguments that Obamacare is fatally flawed and should be scrapped.
HealthCare.gov’s immediate success has also become vital to Obama’s credibility, which polls indicate has been tarnished by the site’s problems as well as his admission that he overreached in promising that everyone who liked their healthcare plan would be able to keep it under the new law.
