In November 2013, the administration says approximately 100,000 people signed up for health insurance through the online federal exchange (healthcare.gov). This was a four-fold increase from October, even as a team of programmers and contractors were undergoing fixes and improvements to the website.
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The preliminary November numbers reflect individuals who successfully selected a plan. The administration expects that most consumers will sign up early next year as the enrollment period nears its March 31 close.
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The administration says it met its self-imposed deadline to update/fix the site, and healthcare.gov is now working smoothly for the majority of users.
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The administration originally targeted enrollment of about 800,000 for the first two months.
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The administrations says the jump in enrollment in November is encouraging and may be a trend that consumers are keeping an open mind about the new health reform law.
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Only 26,794 people signed up for private plans in the federal marketplace in October, while 79,391 enrolled through 14 states which, along with the District of Columbia, are running their own exchanges and websites. Most of the states running their own exchange have experienced fewer technical problems. The federal website healthcare.gov serves 36 states.
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Administration officials say they’ll continue to fix the website over the coming weeks and months. The administration says the last two months were spent addressing the front-end experience for users. The administration (and contractors) are now focusing on healthcare.gov’s failure to properly transmit data to insurers on the back end. That system is important to send data on customers and federal tax credit payments to insurers.
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According to the administration, error message rates for the front end are down to less than 1 percent per page from about 6 percent in October.
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Healthcare.gov can now handle 50,000 users at a time, or about 800,000 per day, according to the administration.
