The White House promised to have HeathCare.gov working by Nov. 30, but is it?
A progress and performance report by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on HealthCare.gov states:
“Over the last five weeks, substantial progress has been made improving HealthCare.gov and getting the system to where it needs to be:
• Hundreds of software fixes, hardware upgrades and continuous monitoring have measurably improved the consumer experience
• Site capacity is stable at its intended level
• Operating metrics are greatly improved, and activity levels demonstrate the site is working for consumers”
The fixes allow more than 50,000 users to log on to the site at once, with more than 800,000 will be able to acquire insurance coverage each day, and the average system response time is lower than one second.
But despite the repairs, glitches remain.
CNN reporters found that the site still crashed as of yesterday.
“We’ve been trying to get into the site since Oct. 1 on and off again,” said CNN medical reporter Matt Sloane. “I have to say it did work a lot more smoothly this morning. I got through. I picked my state. I put in all of my information and I got through the whole process in eight minutes.
“And then it said my status was in progress. So I went to refresh it and I got the error message.”
The HHS report noted that more work needs to be done to improve the website and consumer experience, but that the more immediate goal of having the site work smoothly for the majority of users was met.
“The bottom line: HealthCare.gov on Dec. 1 is night and day from where it was on Oct. 1,” Jeffrey Zients, the administration official overseeing the improvements, told reporters in a conference call.
Uninsured Americans must enroll by March 31, 2014 or face tax penalties. Those who want coverage to start on Jan. 1, 2014 must enroll by Dec. 15.
