Obama puts happy face on disastrous Obamacare rollout

Daily News Article   —   Posted on October 23, 2013

(By Dave Boyer, The Washington Times) – With problems mounting on Obamacare’s costly website, President Obama tried to convince the public Monday that the health care law is “really good,” even as he urged consumers to bypass online enrollment in favor of low-tech options such as mailing paper applications or calling a toll-free number.

Three weeks into Obamacare’s launch, the president was forced by facts to acknowledge that HealthCare.gov is slow and clunky, when it works at all.

“There’s no sugarcoating it,” Mr. Obama said in the White House Rose Garden. “The website has been too slow, people have been getting stuck during the application process. Nobody is more frustrated by that than I am.”

It was Mr. Obama’s first public comment about the website’s failures, and it was a far cry from the president’s bravado of four weeks ago, when he told Americans that a few glitches would be inevitable and that people should disregard the program’s naysayers.

As the president spoke, a female Obamacare supporter standing behind him began to faint. Mr. Obama helped catch her and joked that it was a result of “when I talk too long.”

One source of the website’s troubles appears to be the testing procedures employed before the Oct. 1 rollout. Several developers of the HealthCare.gov website told The Associated Press that they were worried for months about the system’s readiness and whether the software meant to link key computer systems was being properly put through its paces.

Even as the president was delivering his speech, more problems emerged. The administration said a planned upgrade to the website was postponed indefinitely and that online Spanish-language sign-ups would remain unavailable, despite a promise to Hispanic groups that the capability would start this week.

With the success of the health care law itself increasingly in doubt, the White House tried to finesse questions Monday about whether the computer problems would lead to more delays in Obamacare coverage, scheduled to take effect Jan. 1.

White House press secretary Jay Carney wouldn’t answer a question about whether the individual mandate* would be delayed because of enrollment problems or whether Americans would be penalized if they are unable to enroll. [*The individual mandate requires every person in America to purchase health insurance.]

Mr. Obama said the administration is stepping up efforts to fix the website by hiring more outside consultants to troubleshoot a system that is described as 10-year-old technology. The administration hasn’t said how much these efforts will cost; estimates indicate the website already has cost taxpayers more than $600 million.

Republicans have been trying for three years to delay or defund Obamacare, even provoking a 16-day government shutdown this month over the program’s future. But few developments have crystallized their complaints as much as the sight of Mr. Obama urging consumers to find other ways to enroll because of breakdowns of HealthCare.gov.

With the air of an “operators-are-standing-by” TV pitchman, the president said people can buy insurance the old-fashioned way, by showing up at an office in person, calling an 800 number (800/318-2596) or mailing a form via the U.S. Postal Service.

“The call centers are available,” Mr. Obama said. “You can talk to somebody directly and they can walk you through the application process. You can also apply in person with the help of local navigators – these are people specially trained to help you sign up for health care.”

The president tried to put a happy face on the embarrassing rollout of his signature achievement, saying the law is much more than an incompetently designed home page.

“The health insurance that’s being provided is good,” Mr. Obama said. “It’s a right for all to enjoy, and I intend to deliver on that promise.”

Republican lawmakers said the president’s latest defense of Obamacare shows a White House in denial about the law’s harmful impact on the economy.

“The Rose Garden isn’t big enough to fit the millions of American families receiving letters in the mail that the health insurance they like is being canceled or that their premiums and out-of-pocket expenses are going up yet again,” said House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Virginia Republican. “The fact that the president is bringing in outside experts to work on the Obamacare website is little comfort to the thousands of workers, including those at more than 100 school districts across the country, that have had their hours cut because of Obamacare mandates.”

Under the law, large companies must provide health insurance to employees who work more than 30 hours a week, or pay a fine. Growing evidence shows that the requirement is causing some employers to cut workers’ hours.

Rep. Diane Black, Tennessee Republican and a registered nurse, said the president is ignoring examples of people who will pay higher premiums or higher deductibles under Obamacare.

“The president’s breathtakingly naive speech today will do nothing to ease the pain of millions of Americans who are suffering as a result of his ‘signature domestic policy achievement,’” she said. “Obamacare is not a ‘good product,’ nor is it the product he promised it would be.”

Although tech specialists say the website’s poor design is primarily responsible for its failure, Mr. Obama continued to portray the problems as too much demand and uncertainty caused by partisan attacks.

“I’m sure that given the problems with the website so far, they’re going to be looking to go after it even harder,” he said of Republican lawmakers. “And let’s admit it — with the website not working as well as it needs to work, that makes a lot of supporters nervous because they know how it’s been subject to so much attack, the Affordable Care Act generally.”

Mr. Obama said the “essence of the law, the health insurance that’s available to people, is working just fine.”

The president said nearly 20 million people have visited HealthCare.gov and about 500,000 people have applied for insurance since Oct. 1. But he didn’t say how many people have purchased policies; the administration has promised to release that number in mid-November.

Background

 NY Daily News Reporter tries to sign-up for Obamacare by Phone:

I calledNew York’s health exchange just after noon Monday and got through pretty quickly — but the good news stopped there.

First I got tangled in the automated options for small businesses — even though I’d carefully pressed the button for an individual. After about four minutes I lost my patience and chose “representative.”

A man with a pleasant voice answered. He gently corrected me when I asked about enrolling in Obama-care. “You mean the Affordable Health Care Act?” he said.
“You can do that online.” “Can’t I enroll with you?” I asked. “Actually, we’re not able to because there are some glitches which are preventing us from going through with the complete enrollment process,” he said.  Normally, he said, he’d be able to input all my personal information — mostly about my taxes and earnings — generating different health care plans at various prices.  He encouraged me again to register online, even with computers suffering intermittent “glitches.” Or I could call back later, he said.

I tried again around 2 p.m. This time an operator said he didn’t know how to enroll me. “You’re going to have to fill out an application online,” he said.

NY Daily News Reporter tries to sign-up for Obamacare with the help of a "Navigator":

It wasn’t easy finding a navigator Monday to help me cut through the Affordable Care Act’s red tape and get same-day service to find a policy of my own.

It was impossible.

Navigators are third-party social workers the federal government pays to give in-person help to applicants seeking insurance.

To find one, I went to NYStateofHealth.ny.gov — the official website for New York State’s official Affordable Care Act marketplace. The site is loaded with information about how to apply for health insurance.  There’s so much info, in fact, that I couldn’t find the navigators. So I called the help line at (855) 355-5777. After about 10 minutes, a customer service specialist helped me find a 228-page list of navigators on the site, complete with their hours, addresses and phone numbers. The first handful of numbers that I called were answered by machines.

I left messages, but I didn’t feel hopeful about getting called back. Eventually, after about 25 calls, I reached a helpful navigator who works at a nonprofit called Exponents Inc. He told me he could see me Tuesday. It wasn’t speedy service, but I got there in the end.

“We’re slammed, but come in and I can help you out,” he told me. I took the appointment.

How Long Do They Really Have To Fix That Obamacare Website? -(by Julie Appleby, NPR.org)

They've got a few weeks.

But if federal officials can't get the new online insurance marketplace running smoothly by mid-November, the problems plaguing the three-week-old website could become a far bigger threat to the success of the health law, hampering enrollment and fueling opponents' calls to delay implementation, analysts say.

"The system needs to be operating reasonably efficiently — I'm not saying flawlessly — before the middle of November," says Sandy Praeger, the insurance commissioner of Kansas, one of the 36 states relying on the federal marketplace because legislators there opted not to create their own state-based market.

On Monday, President Obama addressed the problems directly for the first time. "No one is more frustrated than me," he said, promising that technology experts from around the country were working with the administration "to get this working better, faster, sooner."

Still, he did not offer details about the scope of the problems, a timeline for the repairs, or the number of people who have successfully enrolled out of the more than 19 million visitors to the federal site.

The stakes are huge — and not just because of public opinion, but to ensure broad insurance pools, which are key to the law's long-term success. The marketplaces were supposed to be one-stop shops where individual consumers could compare policies, find out if they were eligible for subsidies, and enroll in coverage. But without robust participation — and the government is counting on 7 million enrollees the first year — the program could fall short of attracting the necessary balance between healthy and unhealthy consumers.

"If we're not seeing a substantial improvement in the next two or three weeks, we'll be in a bad place," said Dan Schuyler, director of exchange technology at Leavitt Partners, a consulting firm. "We're already behind the curve in getting to that 7 million mark."

The risk in frustrating consumers is that those who are healthy or on the fence about enrolling may give up, leaving only the unhealthy motivated enough to persevere. That could drive up premiums in future years, potentially leading to what experts call "a death spiral," where only the sickest people sign on.

"The people who will go back will be precisely the ones who need health insurance because they've got ongoing problems," said Joseph Antos, an economist at the American Enterprise Institute.

Experts outside the government are trying to assess the scope of the problem with little information coming from the Obama administration. What is known is that technical issues have made it difficult if not impossible for consumers to create accounts. They also have resulted in insurers getting misinformation about those who do manage to enroll. The troubles have been most severe with the federal website, although a few of the 14 states operating state exchanges are also experiencing serious problems.

If the administration solves the problems before the end of October, "this would just be a blip on the radar," said Dan Mendelson, CEO of the Washington, D.C., consulting firm Avalere Health.