HealthCare.Gov Logs 1 Million in First Day

Yesterday, the official website enrolling masses of uninsured Americans into health plans logged 1 million visits. David Simas, White House deputy senior advisor, said the immense volume of insurance-seekers overwhelmed the healthcare.gov online portal.

"1 million visit HealthCare.gov in last day. 5x more users than ever on Medicare.gov at once. Millions want to #GetCovered," Mr Simas said on Twitter.

Despite glitches that read, “We have a lot of visitors on our site right now and we're working to make your experience here better. Please wait here until we send you to the login page. Thanks for your patience!,” the initial numbers of visitors are encouraging. They show there is a strong interest among consumers to obtain coverage. Unfortunately, the glitches are also exposing the faults of the system’s capabilities.

George Van Antwerp, general manager of Pharmacy Solutions at Silverlink Communications, documented his experience:

I was up and ready to try the new healthcare exchanges at HealthCare.gov this morning. While it started well with a nice GUI (graphic user interface), it went downhill from there.

Once I got in, it was busy so I had to hold. Then, when I tried to create a username and followed the directions, it wouldn’t accept my username And, finally, when I got through it all, it wouldn’t accept who I was to let me proceed.

If everyone else has a similar experience, this is either going to be a miserable failure or the call centers are going to be lit up with phone calls and huge waits. I guess to answer the question that the CEO of BCBS of NC poised the other day…this won’t reflect badly on the plans because I can’t even get far enough into the process to see what plans participate.

The Obama administration continues to reassure that these glitches will be temporary during exchange roll-out, but many others worry if the marketplace is ready for the prime time.

Around the Web

ObamaCare Site Hits 1 Million Visits [The Hill]

Healthcare.gov Registration Process — My Experience…Not Good [Enabling Healthy Decisions]