Obama acknowledges HIX glitches, urges patience

There is no excuse for the widely reported glitches encountered by those trying to sign up on the national insurance exchange marketplaces, President Barack Obama told the nation in an Oct. 21 speech. “There's no sugarcoating it. The website has been too slow.”

However, at six weeks into the six-month enrollment process, he urged patience. Experts from “some of America’s top private-sector tech companies” are working overtime to fix the computer bugs plaguing the rollout of the exchanges, he said. “We are doing everything we can possibly do to get the websites working better, faster, sooner.”

To date, he said the national website, healthcare.gov, has been visited nearly 20 million times and more than half a million consumers have submitted applications through federal and state marketplaces.

The president also informed the public that the website is not the sole avenue to enroll in the marketplaces and said that the website’s homepage now offers instructions on how to apply over the phone or by mail. To that end, he said staffing in the call centers has been elevated to meet the demand. It takes about 25 minutes for an individual to apply and 45 minutes for a family, he added.

Obama also took time to assert that the Affordable Care Act “is not just a website” but a system where people without health insurance can receive coverage.  “Precisely because the product is good, I want the cash registers to work, I want the checkout lines to be smooth, so I want people to be able to get this great product.”