Deadline dash: Glitches slow health care sign-ups

People line up to enroll for health insurance at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas on Monday, March 31, 2014. The deadline is just hours away to sign up for insurance in the first enrollment period under President Barack Obama’s signature health care law. (AP Photo/San Antonio Express-News, Jerry Lara) RUMBO DE SAN ANTONIO OUT; NO SALES

People line up to enroll for health insurance at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas on Monday, March 31, 2014. The deadline is just hours away to sign up for insurance in the first enrollment period under President Barack Obama’s signature health care law. (AP Photo/San Antonio Express-News, Jerry Lara) RUMBO DE SAN ANTONIO OUT; NO SALES

Charles Ellis, 53, of Salt Lake City, right, works with navigator Luis Rios while seeking help to buy health insurance at the Utah Health Policy Project Monday, March 31, 2014, in Salt Lake City. Ellis said he doesn’t feel he needs insurance but was signing up to avoid a penalty. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

SEIU-UHW worker Kathy Santana, left , assists Ruben Tares, 27, during a health care enrollment event at SEIU-UHW office, Monday, March 31, 2014, in Commerce, Calif. Monday marks this year’s open enrollment deadline, but consumers will get extra time to finish their applications. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu)

Lisa Valera and her husband Manuel sign up for Obamacare at the Community Service Society, Monday, March 31, 2014 in New York. The troubled U.S. government web site for signing up for health insurance was unavailable for several hours Monday morning as the midnight deadline for buying coverage loomed. Heading into the deadline, more than 6 million Americans had signed up for health insurance, some of the policies heavily subsidized for lower income people. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

A screen shows the countdown for the deadline to sign up for health insurance during a health care enrollment event at SEIU-UHW office, Monday, March 31, 2014, in Commerce, Calif. Monday marks this year’s open enrollment deadline, but consumers will get extra time to finish their applications. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu)

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WASHINGTON (AP) — In a flood of last-minute sign-ups, hundreds of thousands of Americans rushed to apply for health insurance Monday, but deadline day for President Barack Obama’s overhaul brought long, frustrating waits and a new spate of website ills.

“This is like trying to find a parking spot at Wal-Mart on Dec. 23,” said Jason Stevenson, working with a Utah nonprofit group helping people enroll.

At times, more than 125,000 people were simultaneously using HealthCare.gov, straining it beyond its capacity. For long stretches Monday, applicants were shuttled to a virtual waiting room where they could leave an email address and be contacted later.

Officials said the site had not crashed but was experiencing very heavy volume. The website, which was receiving 1.5 million visitors a day last week, had recorded about 1.6 million through 2 p.m. EDT.

Supporters of the health care law fanned out across the country in a final dash to sign up uninsured Americans. People not signed up for health insurance by the deadline, either through their jobs or on their own, were subject to being fined by the IRS, and that threat was helping drive the final dash.

The administration announced last week that people still in line by midnight would get extra time to enroll.

The website stumbled early in the day — out of service for nearly four hours as technicians patched a software bug. Another hiccup in early afternoon temporarily kept new applicants from signing up, and then things slowed further. Overwhelmed by computer problems when launched last fall, the system has been working much better in recent months, but independent testers say it still runs slowly.

At Chicago’s Norwegian American Hospital, people began lining up shortly after 7 a.m. to get help signing up for subsidized private health insurance.

Lucy Martinez, an unemployed single mother of two boys, said she’d previously tried to enroll at a clinic in another part of the city but there was always a problem. She’d wait and wait and they wouldn’t call her name, or they would ask her for paperwork that she was told earlier she didn’t need, she said. Her diabetic mother would start sweating so they’d have to leave.

She’s heard “that this would be better here,” said Martinez, adding that her mother successfully signed up Sunday at a different location.

At St. Francis Hospital in Wilmington, Del., enrollment counselor Hubert Worthen plunged into a long day. “I got my energy drink,” he said. “This is epic, man.”

At a Houston community center, there were immigrants from Ethiopia, Nepal, Eritrea, Somalia, Iraq, Iran and other conflict-torn areas, many of them trying anew after failing to complete applications previously. In addition to needing help with the actual enrollment, they needed to wait for interpreters. Many had taken a day off from work, hoping to meet the deadline.

The White House and other supporters of the law were hoping for an enrollment surge that would push sign-ups in the new health insurance markets to around 6.5 million people. That’s halfway between a revised goal of 6 million and the original target of 7 million. The first goal was scaled back after the federal website’s disastrous launch last fall, which kept it offline during most of October.

The insurance markets — or exchanges — offer subsidized private health insurance to people who don’t have access to coverage through their jobs. The federal government is taking the lead in 36 states, while 14 other states plus Washington, D.C., are running their own enrollment websites.

New York, running its own site, reported more than 812,000 had signed up by Sunday morning, nearly 100,000 of them last week.

However, it’s unclear what those numbers may mean.

The administration hasn’t said how many of the 6 million people nationally who had signed up before the weekend ultimately closed the deal by paying their first month’s premiums. Also unknown is how many were previously uninsured — the real test of Obama’s health care overhaul. In addition, the law expands coverage for low-income people through Medicaid, but only about half the states have agreed to implement that option.

Cheering on the deadline-day sign-up effort, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius planned to spend much of the day Monday working out of the department’s TV studio, conducting interviews by satellite with stations around the country.

Though March 31 was the last day officially to sign up, millions of people are potentially eligible for extensions granted by the administration.

Those include people who had begun enrolling by the deadline but didn’t finish, perhaps because of errors, missing information or website glitches. The government says it will accept paper applications until April 7 and take as much time as necessary to handle unfinished cases on HealthCare.gov. Rules may vary in states running their own insurance marketplaces.

The administration is also offering special extensions to make up for all sorts of problems that might have kept people from getting enrolled on time: Natural disasters. Domestic abuse. Website malfunctions. Errors by insurance companies. Mistakes by application counselors.

To seek a special enrollment period, contact the federal call center, at 1-855-889-4325, or the state marketplace and explain what happened. It’s on the honor system. If the extension is approved, that brings another 60 days to enroll.

Those who still don’t get health insurance run the risk that the Internal Revenue Service will fine them next year for remaining uninsured. It remains to be seen how aggressively the penalties called for in the law are enforced.

Also, the new markets don’t have a monopoly on health insurance. People not already covered by an employer or a government program can comply with the insurance mandate by buying a policy directly from an insurer. They’ll just have to pay the full premium themselves, although in a few states there may be an exception to that rule as well.

Supporters of the law held their breath early Monday when the website was taken down.

Administration spokesman Aaron Albright said the site undergoes “regular nightly maintenance” during off-peak hours and the period was extended because of a “technical problem.” He did not say what the problem was, but an official statement called it “a software bug” unrelated to application volume.

In Oakton, Va., enrollment counselor Rachel Klein said she noticed the website was running slowly.

“We all came into it understanding that today was going to be challenging,” said Klein. “We’re all relieved that there’s going to be a little extra time for people.”

House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio said Monday that Republicans remain committed to repealing Obama’s law. But its supporters are wasting no time trying to shape the next open enrollment season, starting Nov. 15. The advocacy group Families USA will announce ten recommendations Tuesday to make the system more consumer-friendly.

They range from providing more in-person assistance with sign-ups, to eliminating premium penalties for smokers, to aligning enrollment with tax-filing season.

___

Associated Press writers Connie Cass in Washington, Don Babwin in Chicago, Randall Chase in Wilmington, Del., Ramit Plushnick-Masti in Houston, Michelle Price in Salt Lake City and Carolyn Thompson in Buffalo, N.Y., contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Politics Headlines

Deadline dash: Glitches slow health care sign-ups

Deadline dash: Health care sign-ups amid glitches

Charles Ellis, 53, of Salt Lake City, right, works with navigator Luis Rios while seeking help to buy health insurance at the Utah Health Policy Project Monday, March 31, 2014, in Salt Lake City. Ellis said he doesn’t feel he needs insurance but was signing up to avoid a penalty. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

Charles Ellis, 53, of Salt Lake City, right, works with navigator Luis Rios while seeking help to buy health insurance at the Utah Health Policy Project Monday, March 31, 2014, in Salt Lake City. Ellis said he doesn’t feel he needs insurance but was signing up to avoid a penalty. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

SEIU-UHW worker Kathy Santana, left , assists Ruben Tares, 27, during a health care enrollment event at SEIU-UHW office, Monday, March 31, 2014, in Commerce, Calif. Monday marks this year’s open enrollment deadline, but consumers will get extra time to finish their applications. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu)

Lisa Valera and her husband Manuel sign up for Obamacare at the Community Service Society, Monday, March 31, 2014 in New York. The troubled U.S. government web site for signing up for health insurance was unavailable for several hours Monday morning as the midnight deadline for buying coverage loomed. Heading into the deadline, more than 6 million Americans had signed up for health insurance, some of the policies heavily subsidized for lower income people. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

A screen shows the countdown for the deadline to sign up for health insurance during a health care enrollment event at SEIU-UHW office, Monday, March 31, 2014, in Commerce, Calif. Monday marks this year’s open enrollment deadline, but consumers will get extra time to finish their applications. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu)

The HealthCare.gov website is shown on a laptop in Washington, Monday, March 31, 2014. Today is the deadline to sign up for private heath insurance in the online markets created by President Obama’s heath care law or face a federal fines. (AP Photo/J. David Ake)

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WASHINGTON (AP) — In a flood of last-minute sign-ups, hundreds of thousands of Americans rushed to apply for health insurance Monday, as deadline day for President Barack Obama’s overhaul brought long waits and a new spate of website ills.

“This is like trying to find a parking spot at Wal-Mart on Dec. 23,” said Jason Stevenson, working with a Utah nonprofit group helping people enroll.

Supporters of the health care law fanned out across the country in a final dash to sign up uninsured Americans. The HealthCare.gov website, which was receiving 1.5 million visitors a day last week, had recorded about 1.2 million through noon Monday.

At times, more than 125,000 people were simultaneously using the system, straining it beyond its previously estimated capacity. People not signed up for health insurance by the deadline, either through their jobs or on their own, were subject to being fined by the IRS, and that threat was helping drive the final dash.

The administration announced last week that people still in line by midnight would get extra time to enroll.

The website stumbled early in the day — out of service for nearly four hours as technicians patched a software bug. Another hiccup in early afternoon temporarily kept new applicants from signing up, and then things slowed further as the afternoon wore on. Overwhelmed by computer problems when launched last fall, the system has been working much better in recent months, but independent testers say it still runs slowly.

At Chicago’s Norwegian American Hospital, people began lining up shortly after 7 a.m. to get help signing up for subsidized private health insurance.

Lucy Martinez, an unemployed single mother of two boys, said she’d previously tried to enroll at a clinic in another part of the city but there was always a problem. She’d wait and wait and they wouldn’t call her name, or they would ask her for paperwork that she was told earlier she didn’t need, she said. Her diabetic mother would start sweating so they’d have to leave.

She’s heard “that this would be better here,” said Martinez, adding that her mother successfully signed up Sunday at a different location.

At St. Francis Hospital in Wilmington, Del., enrollment counselor Hubert Worthen plunged into a long day. “I got my energy drink,” he said. “This is epic, man.”

At a Houston community center, there were immigrants from Ethiopia, Nepal, Eritrea, Somalia, Iraq, Iran and other conflict-torn areas, many of them trying anew after failing to complete applications previously. In addition to needing help with the actual enrollment, they needed to wait for interpreters. Many had taken a day off from work, hoping to meet the deadline.

The White House and other supporters of the law were hoping for an enrollment surge that would push sign-ups in the new health insurance markets to around 6.5 million people. That’s halfway between a revised goal of 6 million and the original target of 7 million. The first goal was scaled back after the federal website’s disastrous launch last fall, which kept it offline during most of October.

The insurance markets — or exchanges — offer subsidized private health insurance to people who don’t have access to coverage through their jobs. The federal government is taking the lead in 36 states, while 14 other states plus Washington, D.C., are running their own enrollment websites.

New York, running its own site, reported more than 812,000 had signed up by Sunday morning, nearly 100,000 of them last week.

However, it’s unclear what those numbers may mean.

The administration hasn’t said how many of the 6 million people nationally who had signed up before the weekend ultimately closed the deal by paying their first month’s premiums. Also unknown is how many were previously uninsured — the real test of Obama’s health care overhaul. In addition, the law expands coverage for low-income people through Medicaid, but only about half the states have agreed to implement that option.

Cheering on the deadline-day sign-up effort, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius planned to spend much of the day Monday working out of the department’s TV studio, conducting interviews by satellite with stations around the country.

Though March 31 was the last day officially to sign up, millions of people are potentially eligible for extensions granted by the administration.

Those include people who had begun enrolling by the deadline but didn’t finish, perhaps because of errors, missing information or website glitches. The government says it will accept paper applications until April 7 and take as much time as necessary to handle unfinished cases on HealthCare.gov. Rules may vary in states running their own insurance marketplaces.

The administration is also offering special extensions to make up for all sorts of problems that might have kept people from getting enrolled on time: Natural disasters. Domestic abuse. Website malfunctions. Errors by insurance companies. Mistakes by application counselors.

To seek a special enrollment period, contact the federal call center, at 1-855-889-4325, or the state marketplace and explain what happened. It’s on the honor system. If the extension is approved, that brings another 60 days to enroll.

Those who still don’t get health insurance run the risk that the Internal Revenue Service will fine them next year for remaining uninsured. It remains to be seen how aggressively the penalties called for in the law are enforced.

Also, the new markets don’t have a monopoly on health insurance. People not already covered by an employer or a government program can comply with the insurance mandate by buying a policy directly from an insurer. They’ll just have to pay the full premium themselves, although in a few states there may be an exception to that rule as well.

Supporters of the law held their breath early Monday when the website was taken down.

Administration spokesman Aaron Albright said the site undergoes “regular nightly maintenance” during off-peak hours and the period was extended because of a “technical problem.” He did not say what the problem was, but an official statement called it “a software bug” unrelated to application volume.

In Oakton, Va., enrollment counselor Rachel Klein said she noticed the website was running slowly.

“We all came into it understanding that today was going to be challenging,” said Klein. “We’re all relieved that there’s going to be a little extra time for people.”

House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio said Monday that Republicans remain committed to repealing Obama’s law. But its supporters are wasting no time trying to shape the next open enrollment season, starting Nov. 15. The advocacy group Families USA will announce ten recommendations Tuesday to make the system more consumer-friendly.

They range from providing more in-person assistance with sign-ups, to eliminating premium penalties for smokers, to aligning enrollment with tax-filing season.

___

Associated Press writers Connie Cass in Washington, Don Babwin in Chicago, Randall Chase in Wilmington, Del., Ramit Plushnick-Masti in Houston, Michelle Price in Salt Lake City and Carolyn Thompson in Buffalo, N.Y., contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Politics Headlines

Deadline dash: Health care sign-ups amid glitches

LibertyNEWS TV - ObamaCare Train Wreck...Only "Glitches & Bumps"?

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Analysis: U.S. exchanges grapple for solutions to trading glitches

Analysis: U.S. exchanges grapple for solutions to trading glitches
http://currenteconomictrendsandnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/11f3d__?m=02&d=20131126&t=2&i=815296496&w=460&fh=&fw=&ll=&pl=&r=CBRE9AP1G5500.jpg

By Herbert Lash

NEW YORK Tue Nov 26, 2013 1:46pm EST

Commuters pass by the NASDAQ Marketsite in New York, May 21, 2012.

Credit: Reuters/Brendan McDermid

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. security exchanges are feverishly working in the wake of August’s Nasdaq trading halt to reinforce a market that too frequently seems to succumb to technology glitches, but these efforts are unlikely to rectify all the weak spots.

What appeared to be a workable solution two months ago to create a back-up for the exchanges’ “securities information processors,” or SIPS, like the one that got clogged with reams of quotes in Nasdaq-listed stocks on August 22, now looks too complicated, according to sources familiar with the talks.

Making the SIPs more resilient highlights a problem for a market that generally operates exceptionally well, despite a number of high-profile technology failures since early 2012, including Nasdaq’s botched handling of Facebook’s IPO that May.

The more than 50 equity trading venues and their links to hundreds of brokerages, with differing software and numerous order interfaces with the market, have created a system so complex it is vulnerable to failure in countless ways.

To combat this, broker-dealers and market makers have put a premium on enhancing their early warning detection of bugs and other anomalies, and swift damage control when problems occur.

Monitoring for potential glitches or other application failures has taken on greater importance with the market now geared to trade large volumes of securities in microseconds, said Donal Byrne, chief executive of Corvil, which monitors the performance of trading platform operating systems.

“The risk systems that are largely in place today were built for human time. They weren’t built for machine time,” Byrne said.

“Machine time happens in microseconds, milliseconds and seconds. If you can’t detect, alert and react within that time frame, there’s a pretty good chance you can’t address the risk that you’re exposed to. Within a second you could have traded yourself out of business.”

SCANT DETAILS ON EXCHANGE PLANS

The Securities and Exchange Commission told all U.S. stock and options exchanges in September to draw up plans for buttressing the market after a software glitch forced Nasdaq OMX Group Inc (NDAQ.O) to halt trading for three hours in August.

The SEC ordered the exchanges to examine five broad issues, including the SIPs, and proposed kill switches to shut down trading when exchange systems malfunction.

The exchanges said they had established a “pathway” for identifying contingencies for critical infrastructure, or the “single points of failure” that scare national security experts. They targeted trading at the open and close and during initial public offerings, key regulatory messaging during trading, outages at the clearing houses for stocks and options and connections to the exchanges’ disaster recovery facilities.

Details were scant. SEC Chair Mary Jo White acknowledged that “work remains to be done.” The exchanges indicated after their 60-day review that a months-long process lies ahead as they amend their rules and open their proposals for public comment.

“It takes the industry time to digest. You need to see stuff in writing, and you need to see the details,” said a source close to talks between the exchanges and broker-dealers.

For example, discussions among exchanges on measures to fortify the SIPs have had mixed results. An idea that seemed feasible two months ago, to reroute data to Nasdaq’s SIP if a processor for the New York Stock Exchange were to fail, and vice versa, has been canned.

The SIPs operated by Nasdaq and NYSE, now owned by IntercontinentalExchange Group (ICE.N), have different fields and data feed formats, making the rerouting plan a technical challenge, said a second source with knowledge of the talks.

“We’ve talked to the industry and they don’t want to move in that direction. They think it’s overly complicated,” the source said.

A front-line defense has been agreed to involving hardware, software and testing procedures to bolster the SIPs, along with system and process enhancements, the second source said. Existing back-up sites will be used if a failure occurs.

“We need to improve the existing back-up facilities and make it so you can quickly fall over to the back-up site if need be and you’re comfortable doing it,” the source said.

Most of the downtime during the three-hour Nasdaq trading halt was to ensure no hiccups would occur when trading resumed.

Some bemoan the lack of post-mortem reports that would provide insight into mishaps. The content of reports on outages filed with the SEC after such incidents are kept confidential.

STANDARDIZATION VS INNOVATION

Current proposals fail to address other shortcomings in the securities industry, especially aberrant software that often has been the culprit behind the vexing market disruptions.

Nasdaq Chief Executive Robert Greifeld has flagged software as an issue, urging standardized measures and a certification process to help reduce the number of glitches, similar to what exists in the electrical and telecommunications industries.

“There has to be some way where the central body that you test against, they certify you and then say you’re good to go,” Greifeld told reporters last month. “The telco industry works that way, obviously the power industry would work that way.”

Yet many in the market are wary of standardization, in effect seeing it as an affront to capitalism.

“The lack of fully standardized systems and technology is what has made our markets (among)the most efficient on the planet,” said Chris Concannon, a partner at Virtu Financial LLC, a leading market maker in more than 200 markets worldwide.

“Standardization is the enemy of innovation,” he said.

Common standards do exist in electronic trading, such as FIX Protocol, a 20-year-old messaging language to facilitate equity trading. Also, knowledge of how each exchange operates has spread as technology officers switch jobs. Still, some have urged increased standardization to reduce glitches.

The SEC earlier this year sought industry comment on creating standards for computer security, capacity and audits.

Systems testing has increased to ensure they function properly and tasks have been automated to reduce “fat finger” mistakes and error introduction when software is updated.

Exchanges go through daily checks before trading begins, and when changes are made to an exchange’s technology. Automation ensures such repetition is conducted the exact same way to eliminate glitches, said Rob Cornish, chief technology officer at the International Securities Exchange, an options trading platform of Deutsche Boerse Group AG (DB1Gn.DE).

“We call it software deployment automation, and we use newly developed technology to help us with managing code and deploying it,” Cornish said. “We also go beyond software. We’re treating our infrastructure as code, with a goal to automate as much of the change process as possible to reduce human error.”

Concannon said damage control is crucial because technology misfires and testing only goes so far. Virtu conducts regular fire drills with many of its trading venues and runs in-house simulations, often with its personnel unaware of the tests.

“Despite lots of testing, it still fails. Hardware fails, switches break, boxes crash and lines go down,” Concannon said, adding that mitigating damage from technology failures is his firm’s top priority, and should be for the industry as well.

“We spend more time on mitigation and early detection than we do on testing,” he said. “More firms should approach their technology that way.”

(Reporting by Herbert Lash; Editing by Dan Grebler)

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Obama Talks about Healthcare Website Glitches

WhiteHouse.gov
October 21, 2013

President Obama will attempt to turn lemons into lemonade, and say that the glitches are actually a good thing – as they mean people are interested in obtaining health insurance, even though they’re technically being forced to buy it.

This article was posted: Monday, October 21, 2013 at 10:27 am

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Obama Talks about Healthcare Website Glitches

Obama laments ACA glitches

The timetable for establishing a smooth online enrollment experience is still unknown. | AP Photo

President Barack Obama will outline Monday how his administration plans to handle what’s quickly become an embarrassing start for the health care law that will shape his legacy.

From the Rose Garden on Monday morning, Obama will call out the Obamacare website’s well-documented errors as “unacceptable” and try to assure the American public that a crack team of technical experts is working around the clock to do what shouldn’t be so remarkable in 2013: build a functioning website.

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The timing of Obama’s health care event, three weeks after its terrible launch, is an acknowledgement that the administration can’t maintain its Obamacare bunker mentality much longer. With the government shutdown and near-fiscal calamity now off the front pages, Obamacare opponents are primed to highlight all the law’s stumbles starting with a congressional hearing this week.

(PHOTOS: Obamacare online glitches: 25 great quotes)

This was supposed to have been Obamacare’s moment to shine, when the years of bitter fighting in Congress, the states and the courts were supposed to fade away as Americans started signing up for health coverage.

Instead, the administration’s effort to extend affordable health coverage to millions of people devolved into a national punch line about government incompetence. At first the administration blamed the website problems on huge traffic to the site, a sign of high public interest in Obamacare coverage. That explanation’s been dropped as the depth and intensity of the technical obstacles have become evident. One tech expert told The New York Times that as many as 5 million lines of code may need to be rewritten.

“I think that there’s no one more frustrated than the president at the difficulty with the website,” Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said on NBC’s “Meet The Press” on Sunday.

The White House over the weekend touted efforts to improve HealthCare.gov, offering a likely preview of Obama’s comments Monday morning. In what the administration is labeling a “tech surge,” it’s brought in the “best and brightest” from inside and outside government for website triage and emergency surgery. HHS officials late Sunday night also announced consumer-friendly changes so people can steer clear of the website aggravation. They can comparison shop health plans more easily now, or use paper or the call center to sign up.

But everything that has happened with HealthCare.gov so far is a far cry from Obama’s frequent assurances that buying Obamacare coverage would be as easy as purchasing a plane ticket with a few online clicks.

What’s still unknown, however, is the timetable for establishing a smooth online enrollment experience. People still have another five months to sign up for coverage, but Democratic allies are already nervous that pervasive glitches could damage their 2014 narrative. And if they want — or need — coverage by Jan 1, they need to enroll by Dec. 15. And it’s not clear how well the site will be working by then, or how much capacity there is for the offline paper and phone enrollments.

“What has happened is unacceptable in terms of the glitches,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday. “They were overwhelmed to begin with. There is much that needs to be done to correct the situation.”

Meanwhile, Republican opponents of the law are preparing for their own victory lap. The House later this week holds its first hearing to spotlight the faulty Obamacare website. HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius — who soon after the launch stumbled through an awkward interview with Jon Stewart —has so far refused to testify.

“We believe the American people deserve answers to important questions related to the department’s implementation of the exchanges, and a failure to appear voluntarily to discuss the law’s unfolding challenges would only deepen our concern,” House Energy and Commerce Committee leaders wrote to Sebelius last week.

For all the frustrations with HealthCare.gov, people have made it made it through the application process — and the White House plans to highlight those stories today. The administration, as part of its weekend Obamacare offensive, announced that 476,000 people submitted applications for Obamacare coverage since Oct. 1, and about half of the applications came from 36 states where the feds are running the online insurance marketplaces.

The White House refuses to say until next month, however, just how many people have successfully completed enrollment in a health care plan. That number is likely to be low, considering that insurers say they’ve received faulty information from the federal government even after someone makes it all the way through the enrollment process.

Even after this weekend’s tech update, the administration has been typically tight-lipped about the depth of problems at the Obamacare website. Health care consultant Bob Laszewski, who’s been voicing the frustrations of insurers during Obamacare’s rollout, said he hopes that Obama’s speech will change all that.

“I hope the president’s speech will finally start a process that is transparent,” Laszewski wrote to clients and reporters Sunday night. “Just exactly what is wrong with the computer system? How long will it take to fix? Have they brought in independent experts whose advice they are now taking? How many people have applied for a health insurance policy? How can they really expect to fix this on the run?”

Former White House health care adviser Zeke Emanuel offered similar advice Monday morning, calling on the White House to provide daily briefings and specific milestones.

“Reassurance verbally is not worth much at this point,” Emanuel said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

POLITICO – TOP Stories

Obama laments ACA glitches

Widespread Glitches in 34 States...

By Sandhya Somashekhar and Lena Sun,

For live updates about Obamacare’s rollout, click here.

The Web-based marketplaces that form the centerpiece of the president’s health-care law are supposed to be open for business Tuesday, but applicants ran into technical glitches in the morning that prevented them from signing up for health coverage.

People who were trying to sign up on Healthcare. gov, the federal government’s main portal in 34 states, were getting different error messages, including one warning the “system is down” and another saying that too many people are flooding the site.

Maryland, which is running its own marketplace, also had technical problems Monday morning, prompting the state to shut down that Web site. It will be open at noon, a message on the home page of the Maryland Health Connection says — four hours late.

Obama administration officials said they are aware of the problems and are working on them.

“We have built a dynamic system and are prepared to make adjustments as needed and improve the consumer experience,” Department of Health and Human Services spokeswoman Joanne Peters said in statement Tuesday. “Consumers who need help can also contact the call center, use the live chat function, or go to localhelp.healthcare.gov to find an in-person assistor in their community.”

The challenges are not a surprise. There has been a flood of reports in recent days that the sites would likely be hit by glitches on the first day that millions of uninsured Americans are to be able to get government aid to afford coverage and to sign up for health plans. Those plans include new consumer protections, such as a ban on insurance companies’ practice of rejecting people with preexisting conditions.

The overload on the federal site also may hint at some good news for the administration: that a number of people are eager to sign up for coverage, even though the law doesn’t kick in until Jan. 1 and they have six months to enroll before running afoul of the rule that virtually all Americans carry insurance or face a fine.

But problems could turn people off from signing up, and are likely to fuel more Republican attacks on President Obama’s signature health care legislation.

On Monday, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius pleaded for patience during a briefing with reporters, acknowledging there would probably be some site issues in the coming days and weeks as the administration moves forward on the sweeping program known as Obamacare. She likened the inevitable fixes to software updates on Apple products such as the iPhone or iPad.

“No one is calling on Apple to not sell devices for a year or to get out of the business because the whole thing is a failure,” she said. “Everyone just assumes there’s a problem, they’ll fix it, let’s move on. . . . Hopefully, they’ll give us the same slack as they give Apple.”

Under Obamacare, some new applicants will qualify for Medicaid, the state-federal program for the poor, which was expanded. Others will get government subsidies to help pay for premiums for private insurance.

For weeks, insurance companies, consultants and others have been warning of flaws in the computer systems running at both the state and federal levels. Sixteen states and the District chose to build their own Web site marketplaces, while 34 states left all or part of the task to the federal government.

Those warnings have become fodder for Republican critics of the law, who say the problems underscore why they oppose it. “Everybody here, among Republicans at least, agrees that this is a bad law that needs to be delayed, and the American people agree with that,” Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) said Monday in a television interview on “Fox & Friends.”

Despite reports of problems and delays of key functions as recently as Friday, administration officials on Monday said the federal marketplace was ready, including many of its touted features, such as the ability to see which doctors are participating in which plans and to figure out instantly whether a person qualifies for a government subsidy.

People’s experiences are likely to vary from place to place, however. Officials in the District, which calls its plan D.C. Health Link, have said it could be a month before residents will be able to know the amount of the subsidy they might receive. But shoppers will be able to see each plan’s network doctors before choosing a plan.

Residents of Virginia, which opted not to build its own marketplace, will be able to sign up for coverage on the federal site.

Maryland, which was among the earliest states to embrace the health law, also gave a demonstration for reporters Monday to show how people will be able to shop and enroll in a plan on the Maryland Health Connection. Maryland residents will have a more powerful search tool than the one on Healthcare.gov, allowing them to enter the name of a doctor and see a list of plans in which that physician participates.

“Nobody has that, and it’s a really, really cool thing to be able to do,” said Joshua Sharfstein, Maryland’s health secretary.

But on Monday, Maryland was still trying to work out some possible tech issues before making the site live. One expected problem: The exchange won’t be collecting payments immediately from people who want to enroll in private insurance plans, Sharfstein said. Those people will receive an e-mail in a few weeks notifying them when the exchange will be able to take their payment.

Also, there was concern that some people seeking to enroll online immediately may not be able to because the technology that determines their eligibility is not working consistently for certain categories of applicants.; For example, people up to age 26 who were formerly in foster care are eligible to enroll in the expanded Medicaid program and will be able to do so online. But 19-year-olds in this category won’t be able to do so right away because of a glitch.

Very large and complex families also won’t be able to receive immediate online eligibility determinations, nor will nonparent caretakers, Sharfstein said.

“Our feeling is that the majority will be able to go all the way through” the enrollment process for Medicaid and for private insurance, he said.

Currently those applications require reams of paperwork, and many weeks to process. “We’re taking a quantum leap forward with the ease in applying for health insurance,” Sharfstein said.

Residents will be able to browse 45 plans from six different carriers.

Related: LIVE: Obamacare marketplaces open around the country

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Under fire, "Obamacare" going live _ with glitches

The Capitol in Washington, Monday, Sept. 30, 2013, as the government teeters on the brink of a partial shutdown at midnight unless Congress can reach an agreement on funding. Hours before a threatened government shutdown, the Senate has the next move Monday on must-do budget legislation that has fueled a bitter congressional dispute over President Barack Obama’s signature health care law. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

The Capitol in Washington, Monday, Sept. 30, 2013, as the government teeters on the brink of a partial shutdown at midnight unless Congress can reach an agreement on funding. Hours before a threatened government shutdown, the Senate has the next move Monday on must-do budget legislation that has fueled a bitter congressional dispute over President Barack Obama’s signature health care law. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Contentious from its conception, President Barack Obama’s health care law has survived the Supreme Court, a battle for the White House and rounds of budget brinkmanship. Now comes the ultimate test: the verdict of the American people.

A government shutdown may dampen any celebration as health insurance markets open Tuesday around the country. But it won’t stop the main components of “Obamacare” from going live as scheduled, glitches and all. The biggest expansion of society’s safety net since Medicare will be in the hands of consumers, and most of their concerns don’t revolve around ideology and policy details.

People want to know if they can afford the premiums, if the coverage will be solid, where the bureaucratic pitfalls are and if new federal and state websites will really demystify shopping for health insurance. Full answers may take months.

Expect the rollout to get off to a slow start, with some bumps.

People who don’t have access to job-based health insurance can start shopping right away for subsidized private coverage. Or they can wait to sign up as late as Dec. 15 and still get coverage by Jan. 1. Many will probably want to see how it goes for the first wave of applicants before they jump in.

Glitches are likely to pop up in the new online insurance markets. Over the weekend, several states were still struggling to get plan information to display accurately on their websites. Earlier, the federal government announced delays for small business and Spanish-language signups. A protracted government shutdown could slow needed technology fixes.

Consumers also could run into problems getting their right subsidy amounts. People with complicated tax returns and extended families living under the same roof could find they need personal assistance to work out the issues. Referrals to state Medicaid programs might go smoothly in some states, not so well in others.

“As this unveils, it is going to be very clear that everything can’t be done on a computer,” Christine Ferguson, director of Rhode Island’s marketplace, said in an interview prior to the launch. “But by Day 60 to 120, and the year after that, it’s going to get a lot more user friendly and effective.”

Eventually, at least half the nation’s nearly 50 million uninsured people are expected to get health insurance through the Affordable Care Act, either through subsidized private plans sold in the new markets or an expanded version of Medicaid in states accepting it for low-income uninsured adults. Immigrants in the country illegally will be the largest group remaining uninsured.

People who do have access to employer-based plans will also see changes. Starting Jan. 1, virtually all Americans will have a legal obligation to carry health insurance or face fines. Passing up the company medical plan in exchange for a bigger paycheck may no longer be an option. But employees who lose their jobs, entrepreneurs starting their own businesses and people in between school and work will have an easier time getting coverage.

Also as of Jan. 1, a pre-existing medical condition will no longer be a barrier to getting health insurance.

A partial government shutdown, driven by Republican opposition to increasing the federal role in health care, will not stop what they call “Obamacare.” The program was designed so that core provisions and benefits are shielded from annual budget battles. If other government services are shut down, the health care overhaul can largely keep going — much like Social Security and Medicare. The federal government is taking the lead in running the new insurance markets in 36 states.

Polls show the country remains divided over the law, with opponents outnumbering supporters. Nonetheless, a Kaiser Family Foundation survey released over the weekend found 56 percent of Americans disapprove of cutting off funding to expand coverage for the uninsured, as congressional Republicans are pressing to do.

The poll also found that people are in a fog about what the law means for them. Nearly three-fourths of the uninsured were unaware of the new insurance markets opening to serve them.

In states not expanding Medicaid, millions of uninsured people below the federal poverty level will likely be shut out of coverage. That’s the case in Texas and Florida — both of which have large uninsured populations — and in many, but not all, Republican-led states.

It’s because under the law, people below the poverty line — an individual making $ 11,490, a family of four $ 23,550 — can only get the new coverage through expanded Medicaid. And the Supreme Court gave states the right to opt out.

The other arm of “Obamacare’s” coverage expansion — subsidized private insurance through the new markets — is mainly geared to uninsured people in the middle class. The administration is hoping to sign up 7 million the first year. Young, healthy adults are prime customers, since they’ll help offset the cost of caring for sicker people sure to sign up once insurers can no longer reject them.

Kevin Maass of Fairfax, Va., has been uninsured for more than a year, since he turned 26 and could no longer stay on his parents’ insurance. He’s got a background in statistics that he hopes to apply to criminology, but he’s been waiting tables while looking for a job in law enforcement.

“Not having health insurance has made me a little bit more cautious,” said Maass. “I like to snowboard, but it’s given me second thoughts. Heaven forbid I should break my wrist or my arm.”

Maass thinks he might be able to afford $ 100 to $ 200 a month for insurance. Early indications are that he’ll find plenty of options. However, plans with the lowest premiums will have high deductibles and copayments, which means sizable out-of-pocket costs if he gets sick or has an accident.

Nonetheless, Maass says he’s definitely planning to check out the health insurance market. “My parents have been pushing for me to get health insurance,” he said. “I might as well at least get something rather than pay (a fine) to not have anything.”

Associated Press

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Under fire, "Obamacare" going live _ with glitches