Consumers rushed to meet a Monday deadline for picking or changing Affordable Care Act health plans for the new year, creating a surge of visitors to HealthCare.gov that tested the revamped site.
The federal enrollment portal, which was hobbled by technical problems last year, appeared to hold up well despite a swell in volume, according to people familiar with its operation. Some state-run insurance sites extended enrollment deadlines and in-person sign-up hours due to heavy last-minute demand.
Overall enrollment is scheduled to run until Feb. 15. But in most cases, consumers had been told that if they wanted to change existing plans or start new ones in time for Jan. 1, they had to do so by Monday.
Consumers in some cases grappled with delay. Calls to the Minnesota insurance exchange, for example, were averaging about 1,600 an hour, which was a historic high, the marketplace said. The state extended its deadline to Saturday.
“There was a bit of an uptick and a longer waiting period to get through to call centers,” said Jin Lee Johnson, a health-policy specialist at the Minnesota Association of Community Health Centers.
About five million people enrolled in health plans for 2014 through the federal marketplace, now used by 37 states. As of Dec. 5, only 720,000 had returned to select a plan for 2015. Advocates have made a push to get people to re-enroll because they could see their insurance costs increase if they don’t come back. Outreach has included a flurry of last-minute email and text-message reminders.
The Obama administration said it has built the federal site to withstand 250,000 simultaneous users, with the option of adding more capacity if needed. Katie Hill, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services, confirmed the call center was experiencing “longer than normal wait times” but said users could access HealthCare.gov without delays.
Enroll America, which promotes enrollment under the health law, said it has seen strong attendance at more than 600 sign-up events this past week. Most assisters have been able to sort out problems, said Justin Nisly, a group spokesman.
“We’ve had very high demand,” said Karen Spink, assistant director of the Health District of Northern Larimer County in Colorado, which provides health services and had navigators working extended hours on Monday. “There are some challenges with the volume.”
Utah’s Arches Health Plan, which was signing people up through its own website, said that as the applications hit the part of the process where they had to go through HealthCare.gov, they were often getting hung up late Monday.
The insurer said representatives were filling out paper applications for consumers, and they planned to keep trying to get people through the digital signup process until the federal site’s deadline. “It’s rush-hour traffic,” said Aaron Quarnberg, vice president of customer service at the nonprofit.
Stephani Becker, a senior policy specialist at the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law in Chicago, said a jump in people trying to beat the deadline over the past week revealed problems, as consumers tried to unlock last year’s accounts and reset passwords. She also said low-income legal immigrants were still being directed to enroll in Medicaid even though they hadn’t lived in the U.S. long enough to qualify.
Ms. Becker described a family who had a plan through the exchange last year and wanted to renew it and add a family member. She said it took an hour and a half to unlock the account and update the family’s information, and then another 90 minutes to get a formal denial from Medicaid. The family had to return to complete the work on Saturday.
Residents in some states will have more time to switch plans or get new ones for January. Idaho, New York, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Rhode Island and Washington are among those that either extended their deadlines or established later cutoff dates for changes.
Idaho’s exchange extended its deadline to select or change a plan until Saturday, in part because the state saw a 30% increase in call volume in the past few days and experienced some technical glitches with accounts, said Pat Kelly, executive director of the state exchange.
New York also extended its deadline, to Saturday, for enrolling in or renewing plans that take effect Jan. 1, because winter weather in western and othersome parts of the state left some residents without power or unable to attend enrollment events.
Steve Oropeza, a 46-year-old IT contractor from Costa Mesa, Calif., planned to sign up Monday but stopped because he couldn’t afford the $289-a-month premium. He currently doesn’t have insurance, and went in to get in-person assistance.
“The rates are so high,” he said. “I had to postpone completion. I’m being forced to have insurance and if I don’t I get penalized.”
Date: December 15, 2014