HealthCare.gov launched its second enrollment effort under the Affordable Care Act on Saturday to largely positive reviews, suffering from fewer of the logjams and frustrating waits that plagued consumers last year.
Interviews with nearly two dozen enrollment aides, federal officials and consumers nationwide showed that many people were able to create accounts in minutes instead of the hours or weeks it took during the first sign-up season. Many site users said they were able to get quick assistance and enroll in plans despite some waits at call centers and a few enrollment snags.
Nearly all states running their own exchanges also opened for business on Saturday, and some saw hiccups. Washington state took its enrollment system down because of problems calculating consumer tax credits that offset the cost of insurance premiums. Glitches in the enrollment sites of Vermont and California left some consumers unable to initially complete applications in the morning.
The smoother opening came as a relief to the Obama administration, which has poured resources into upgrading HealthCare.gov. Republicans have been poised to seize on any problems in their continuing efforts to limit or repeal the 2010 health law.
“For day one, this year is a thousand times better than last year,” said
Dave Chandra,
who was volunteering at Northern Virginia Family Services in Falls Church to help sign up consumers on the federal website. “It’s a lot easier.”
Some of the program’s opponents, however, remained adamantly opposed. “The law has burdened the American people with less choice, more taxes and increased costs,” said Sen.
Orrin Hatch
(R. Utah). “This new reality is unacceptable. We must repeal and replace this flawed law with patient-centered reforms that empower Americans, not Washington.”
The exchanges are a linchpin of the federal health law and allow consumers to obtain coverage, re-enroll in plans and determine their eligibility for premium subsidies. Thirty-seven states rely on the federal site, while 13 states and the District of Columbia are running their own exchanges. The enrollment period runs through Feb. 15.
More than 20,000 applications for 2015 coverage had been completed on HealthCare.gov in eight hours after the site opened early Saturday morning, according to the Obama administration. Around 1.2 million visitors had used the site’s window-shopping tool since the feature was launched last weekend.
“I am quite happy that we are where we are,” said
Sylvia Mathews Burwell,
secretary of Health and Human Services, at an enrollment event at a health center in Manassas, Va. Officials were watching for problems but saw nothing serious, she said.
Last year, the federal site fared so poorly that it imperiled the health law, spurring congressional hearings and lowering public support for the act. Consumers saw delays due to a software system that buckled under high user volume. This time, the Obama administration performed more testing of the site and introduced features designed to make it easy to use, including a streamlined application and revamped identify verification system.
People who have private insurance through HealthCare.gov will have their plans automatically renewed, but customers are being encouraged to shop online by Dec. 15 to get lower prices. Some insurers remain concerned about the re-enrollment process for those with 2014 plans and say testing has only just begun of the automatic function.
On Saturday, a half-dozen insurers around the country reported that enrollment via HealthCare.gov appeared to be going fairly smoothly for both for new sign-ups and people who have plans.
Consumers were experiencing roughly 15-minute waits on Saturday morning when they phoned the federal enrollment call center, said
Brian Lobley,
a senior vice president at Independence Blue Cross, a Philadelphia-based nonprofit. At the insurer’s own call center, extra agents were asked to come in to handle what the insurer projects will be more than 2,000 calls on Saturday.
Letha Best, 48, a single mother of two who works for a textile company near Durham, N.C., said she was unable to enroll in an exchange plan last year. But on Saturday at the Durham County Department of Public Health, Ms. Best signed up for insurance on HealthCare.gov within 25 minutes, receiving a subsidy of more than $700 that drops her monthly premium to $6.34.
“The computer, the website, everything was on point today,” she said. “Now, I can live and have health coverage. Before, I was trying to have health coverage and pay my rent and my utilities, and I just couldn’t do that.”
Minnesota was among the states running their own exchanges that were making fixes to its site as recently as this past week. It reported smooth operations on Saturday, according to
Joseph Campbell,
a spokesman for the exchange.
In Vermont, people said they were unable to access the enrollment site early in the morning.
Lawrence Miller,
chief of health care reform for the state, said technicians fixed a bad link, and the exchange was working later in the day. As of 1 p.m. local time, the state had processed 201 renewals and 51 new applications.
At a sign-up site in Los Angeles run by nonprofit AltaMed Health Services Corp, the flow of people accessing the site was steady in the morning, said
Mauricio Correa,
community relations manager. After 9 a.m., however, workers helping people sign up ran into a problem with the state’s online marketplace. While they were able to enter personal information, the consumers weren’t able to shop for new plans or select coverage, Mr. Correa said. The function was down for over an hour, he said. After that, it worked, though at times slowly.
Up to 9.9 million people are projected to have private coverage through exchanges in 2015. More than seven million people have such plans in 2014.
Consumers who obtained coverage last year, however, could face some significant increases in premium if they don’t shop around. The success of the law also faces other hurdles, including a legal test at the Supreme Court that jeopardizes subsidies paid on the federal exchange to almost 5 million Americans.
The 2015 enrollment season will last half as long as last year’s. This year marks the first time current enrollees will use the site to renew their coverage. More than seven million people have private insurance through the law’s exchanges.
Liz Gallops,
an insurance agent in Winston-Salem, N.C., said one new enrollee’s application hit an error and got ejected from the system. But she was able to get back in quickly and complete the sign-up, which overall took a little over an hour.
Early in last year’s open enrollment period, HealthCare.gov would often force consumers out three or four times during the process. They would have to wait in a queue that could go an hour or more before they could restart, she said. “Only getting kicked out once was fantastic,” by comparison, she said.
—
Caitlin McCabe
contributed to this article.
Write to Stephanie Armour at stephanie.armour@wsj.com, Anna Wilde Mathews at anna.mathews@wsj.com and Louise Radnofsky at louise.radnofsky@wsj.com
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