HealthCare.gov enrollment off to slow start

More than 106,000 people have signed up for insurance plans through the state and federal exchanges, according to the Department of Health and Human Services’ widely-anticipated release of enrollment numbers. Fewer than 27,000 enrolled through the HealthCare.gov website and about 79,000 signed up through marketplaces operated by 15 states.

These numbers are only a sliver of the 14 million individuals President Barack Obama hopes to enroll in the exchanges.

HHS also reported that about 975,000 have made it through the process of applying and receiving an eligibility determination, but they have not yet selected a plan. Nearly 400,000 have been determined or assessed eligible for Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program, according to the agency.

Despite the slow start, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a statement that she expects enrollment to grow substantially throughout the next five months. “We also expect that the numbers will grow as the website, HealthCare.gov, continues to make steady improvements.”

The Obama Administration’s self-imposed Nov. 30 deadline to repair the problematic federal health insurance exchange website may be missed, however, according to an article in the Washington Post.

An anonymous government official told the paper that CGI Federal, the lead contractor of the project, has succeeded in repairing only 60 percent of the issues it has encountered thus far. Moreover, Healthcare.gov continues to experience technical issues, including frozen computer screens and time-out errors, when more than 20,000 to 30,000 users access the system simultaneously.

Federal officials hope to direct consumers to other enrollment avenues, such as contacting federal call centers or insurers directly, but these pathways are similarly affected by technical problems. Those working to fix the exchange website hope the system can handle outside queries from insurers and call centers within about two or three weeks, according to the article.