AP sources: 476,000 Obamacare applications filed
Associated Press By JULIE PACE
15 hours ago
File- Thgis Oct. 17, 2013 file photo shows President Barack Obama speaking in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington. Administration officials say about 476,000 health insurance applications have been filed through federal and state exchanges, the most detailed measure yet of the problem-plagued rollout of President Obama's signature legislation. However, the officials continue to refuse to say how many people have actually enrolled in the insurance markets. Without enrollment figures, it's unclear whether the program is on track to reach the 7 million people projecting by the Congressional Budget Office to gain coverage during the six-month sign-up period. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File).
View gallery
File- Thgis Oct. 17, 2013 file photo shows President Barack Obama speaking in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington. Administration officials say about 476,000 health insurance applications have been filed through federal and state exchanges, the most detailed measure yet of the problem-plagued rollout of President Obama's signature legislation. However, the officials continue to refuse to say how many people have actually enrolled in the insurance markets. Without enrollment figures, it's unclear whether the program is on track to reach the 7 million people projecting by the Congressional Budget Office to gain coverage during the six-month sign-up period. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Administration officials say about 476,000 health insurance applications have been filed through federal and state exchanges, the most detailed measure yet of the problem-plagued rollout of President Barack Obama's signature legislation.
However, the officials continue to refuse to say how many people have actually enrolled in the insurance markets. Without enrollment figures, it's unclear whether the program is on track to reach the 7 million people projecting by the Congressional Budget Office to gain coverage during the six-month sign-up period.
Obama's advisers say the president has been frustrated by the flawed rollout. During one of his daily health care briefings last week, he told advisers assembled in the Oval Office that the administration had to own up to the fact that there were no excuses for not having the website ready to operate as promised.
The president is expected to address the problems on Monday during a health care event at the White House. Cabinet members and other top administration officials will also be traveling around the country in the coming weeks to encourage sign-ups in areas with the highest population of uninsured people.
The first three weeks of sign-ups have been marred by a cascade of computer problems, which the administration says it is working around the clock to correct. The rough rollout has been a glaring embarrassment for Obama, who invested significant time and political capital in getting the law passed during his first term.
The officials said technology experts from inside and outside the government are set to work on the glitches, though they did not say how many workers were being added.
Officials did say staffing has been increased at call centers by about 50 percent. As problems persist on the federally run website, the administration is encouraging more people to sign up for insurance over the phone.
The officials did not want to be cited by name and would not discuss the health insurance rollout unless they were granted anonymity.
Despite the widespread problems, the Obama administration has yet to fully explain what went wrong with the online system consumers were supposed to use to sign up for coverage.
Initially, administration officials blamed a high volume of interest for the frozen screens that many people encountered. Since then, the administration has also acknowledged unspecified problems with software and some elements of the system's design.
Interest in the insurance markets appears to continue to be high. Officials said about 19 million people had visited HealthCare.gov as of Friday night.
People seeking insurance must fill out applications before selecting specific plans. The applications include personal information, including income figures that are used to calculate any subsidies the applicant may qualify for.
More than one person can be included on an application.
Of the 476,000 applications that have been started, just over half have been from the 36 states where the federal government is taking the lead in running the markets. The rest of the applications have come from the 14 states running their own markets, along with Washington, D.C.
The White House says it plans to release the first enrollment totals from both the federal and state-run markets in mid-November.
An internal memo obtained by The Associated Press showed that the administration projected nearly a half-million people would enroll for the insurance markets during the first month.
Officials say they expect enrollments to be heavier toward the end of the six-month sign-up window.
In an ironic twist, the problems with the rollout were overshadowed by Republican efforts to get changes to the health care law in exchange for funding the government. That effort failed and the government reopened last week with the health care law intact.
Stung by that defeat, some Republicans are now calling for the resignation of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. The White House says it has complete confidence in her.
House Republicans have scheduled a hearing next week to look into the rollout problems. White House allies say they're confident the problems are being addressed.
"There's no question the marketplace website needs some improvement," said Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., one of the architects of the law. "The administration needs to fix the computer bugs and I'm confident that they're working around the clock to fix the problems."
___
Associated Press writer Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar contributed to this report.
___
Follow Julie Pace at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC
6,412 Comments My Comments
Popular Now Newest Oldest Most Replied
Dean
Dean 1 hour ago 0 56
The Obama Administration keeps getting caught in lies. The first week of October they claimed the problems were because so many attempted to use the system, which overloaded the system. The truth has slowly come out that there were not millions trying to use the system, it simply did not and does not work well despite over half a billion in cost. Every article you see on line from technical experts states that the basic design is flawed and that the contractors given the job had no experience in this type of programming. Maybe someon should release what contractors were responsible and see who receivedf their campaign donations.
More
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MaryS
MaryS 2 hours ago 1 144
Just to clarify. According to their counting, 5 of those applications are mine. But since after creating 3 accounts (1 with 2 children) with different email addresses I could not get into the system to find out the actual rates, I did NOT apply for insurance. The system forced you to create an account to see the rates and then since the system was broken would not allow me to login. Unfortunately the government doesn't seem to understand basic math. Although that does explain the lack of a budget for 4 years. They cannot handle basic math skills.
More
Expand Replies (13) Reply
James
James 1 hour ago 0 43
The ACA was supposed to get 30 Million people enrolled. Enrollment period is Oct 1 to Dec 15, or 75 days, which means that 400,000 per day would have to get enrolled, not just applied. So in 20 days there should by 8 million already enrolled, and they got 500,000 applications?? How long will it take this community organizer to admit there is no way it is going to work? Only ones working hard to get in have pre existing conditions, or are getting it free, or highly subsidized, and will be costly for the insurers and the government. Insurers raise rates on those actually paying, government goes broke.
More
Expand Replies (2) Reply
Steve Porter
Steve Porter 1 hour ago 0 41
476,000 have applied. How many of those actually enrolled? The premiums and deductibles are astronomical and people are either unable or unwilling to pay these amounts. We were told it was affordable, it is not. We were told we could keep the Insurance we had if we wanted to, we can not. We were told we could keep our Doctor, but 40% of doctors have dropped their Medicaid Patients. Personally I think this whole thing has been and will continue to be a total Disaster.
More
Expand Replies (5) Reply
Catrinia
Catrinia 1 hour ago 0 22
Young healthy people generally have not much to lose financially if a catastrophic health event occurs, It doesn't make sense to them to buy insurance at this point in their lives. As the general population ages, health issues are more of a problem. Years ago, many of us were covered by our employer's insurance and didn't think about it too much. It worked because the money put into the system was much larger than what most of us used. Now with a poor economy and aging population and growing welfare burdens, it's difficult to devise a system that works for everyone. I don't have an answer.
More
Expand Replies (8) Reply
HOMER
HOMER 3 hours ago 1 92
The company who set up this flawed web-site was hired with no background check nor did the White House send out bids to companies. This company was fired by the country of Canada, and they are sueing them. So far our government has paid 172 million dollars to this company to set up the web-site which is unheard of. Many other companies would have only charged a fraction of this to set up the site, and I'm sure would have worked better then what we have....government again wasting our tax money.
More
Expand Replies (9) Reply
DEFAULT_USERNAME
Commenter 45 minutes ago 0 15
I tired to apply. I got as far as the verification of who I am page. Three out of four of the questions applied to me; I answered correctly. The last question didn't apply to me; I selected none. It came back as my identity could not be verified so I would have to call in order to verify my identity. Who has time for all this #$%$? All I can is we better not be penalized for not having insurance when they can't get their s**t right. I have already tried 3 times. Not gonna try much more.
More
Expand Replies (3) Reply
TJRRacing
TJRRacing 47 minutes ago 0 16
"Obama told advisers assembled in the Oval Office that the administration had to own up to the fact that there were no excuses for not having the website ready to operate as promised."
I don't know why he is crying about that. A large portion of the $634 million that he promised to pay this Canadian company to create the website will go right back in to his pockets from kickbacks. I mean, why else would you offer that amount when the job could have been done for well under one million bucks? It's obvious someone is getting a kickback.
More
Expand Replies (1) Reply
Wal
Wal 1 hour ago 0 15
The article says that there were 476,000 applications filed so far. What it doesn't say is that in order to receive a quote for coverage, you must first apply. It also does not say that the questions asked are very intrusive with no relavence to the insurance coverage and many people are refusing to answer them. So far, only about three thousand people have actually signed up to get coverage. I know that we are only in the first three weeks of enrollment, but those figures only amount to about one ten thousanth of one percent of the US population.
More
Reply
janine
janine 42 minutes ago 0 7
You have to submit an application before you can even look at the any of their options. Probably half of those applications are ppl being nosey or multiple applications. According to their cust service ppl I have 3 applications, which I only have 1, & I still cant look at the insurance options because their site is screwed up & my acct doesnt show the aplication, messages or a link for the insurance cmparisons. Working with a 3rd dept in 2 wk to solve the issue.
More
Reply
Associated Press By JULIE PACE
15 hours ago
File- Thgis Oct. 17, 2013 file photo shows President Barack Obama speaking in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington. Administration officials say about 476,000 health insurance applications have been filed through federal and state exchanges, the most detailed measure yet of the problem-plagued rollout of President Obama's signature legislation. However, the officials continue to refuse to say how many people have actually enrolled in the insurance markets. Without enrollment figures, it's unclear whether the program is on track to reach the 7 million people projecting by the Congressional Budget Office to gain coverage during the six-month sign-up period. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File).
View gallery
File- Thgis Oct. 17, 2013 file photo shows President Barack Obama speaking in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington. Administration officials say about 476,000 health insurance applications have been filed through federal and state exchanges, the most detailed measure yet of the problem-plagued rollout of President Obama's signature legislation. However, the officials continue to refuse to say how many people have actually enrolled in the insurance markets. Without enrollment figures, it's unclear whether the program is on track to reach the 7 million people projecting by the Congressional Budget Office to gain coverage during the six-month sign-up period. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Administration officials say about 476,000 health insurance applications have been filed through federal and state exchanges, the most detailed measure yet of the problem-plagued rollout of President Barack Obama's signature legislation.
However, the officials continue to refuse to say how many people have actually enrolled in the insurance markets. Without enrollment figures, it's unclear whether the program is on track to reach the 7 million people projecting by the Congressional Budget Office to gain coverage during the six-month sign-up period.
Obama's advisers say the president has been frustrated by the flawed rollout. During one of his daily health care briefings last week, he told advisers assembled in the Oval Office that the administration had to own up to the fact that there were no excuses for not having the website ready to operate as promised.
The president is expected to address the problems on Monday during a health care event at the White House. Cabinet members and other top administration officials will also be traveling around the country in the coming weeks to encourage sign-ups in areas with the highest population of uninsured people.
The first three weeks of sign-ups have been marred by a cascade of computer problems, which the administration says it is working around the clock to correct. The rough rollout has been a glaring embarrassment for Obama, who invested significant time and political capital in getting the law passed during his first term.
The officials said technology experts from inside and outside the government are set to work on the glitches, though they did not say how many workers were being added.
Officials did say staffing has been increased at call centers by about 50 percent. As problems persist on the federally run website, the administration is encouraging more people to sign up for insurance over the phone.
The officials did not want to be cited by name and would not discuss the health insurance rollout unless they were granted anonymity.
Despite the widespread problems, the Obama administration has yet to fully explain what went wrong with the online system consumers were supposed to use to sign up for coverage.
Initially, administration officials blamed a high volume of interest for the frozen screens that many people encountered. Since then, the administration has also acknowledged unspecified problems with software and some elements of the system's design.
Interest in the insurance markets appears to continue to be high. Officials said about 19 million people had visited HealthCare.gov as of Friday night.
People seeking insurance must fill out applications before selecting specific plans. The applications include personal information, including income figures that are used to calculate any subsidies the applicant may qualify for.
More than one person can be included on an application.
Of the 476,000 applications that have been started, just over half have been from the 36 states where the federal government is taking the lead in running the markets. The rest of the applications have come from the 14 states running their own markets, along with Washington, D.C.
The White House says it plans to release the first enrollment totals from both the federal and state-run markets in mid-November.
An internal memo obtained by The Associated Press showed that the administration projected nearly a half-million people would enroll for the insurance markets during the first month.
Officials say they expect enrollments to be heavier toward the end of the six-month sign-up window.
In an ironic twist, the problems with the rollout were overshadowed by Republican efforts to get changes to the health care law in exchange for funding the government. That effort failed and the government reopened last week with the health care law intact.
Stung by that defeat, some Republicans are now calling for the resignation of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. The White House says it has complete confidence in her.
House Republicans have scheduled a hearing next week to look into the rollout problems. White House allies say they're confident the problems are being addressed.
"There's no question the marketplace website needs some improvement," said Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., one of the architects of the law. "The administration needs to fix the computer bugs and I'm confident that they're working around the clock to fix the problems."
___
Associated Press writer Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar contributed to this report.
___
Follow Julie Pace at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC
6,412 Comments My Comments
Popular Now Newest Oldest Most Replied
Dean
Dean 1 hour ago 0 56
The Obama Administration keeps getting caught in lies. The first week of October they claimed the problems were because so many attempted to use the system, which overloaded the system. The truth has slowly come out that there were not millions trying to use the system, it simply did not and does not work well despite over half a billion in cost. Every article you see on line from technical experts states that the basic design is flawed and that the contractors given the job had no experience in this type of programming. Maybe someon should release what contractors were responsible and see who receivedf their campaign donations.
More
Expand Replies (5) Reply
MaryS
MaryS 2 hours ago 1 144
Just to clarify. According to their counting, 5 of those applications are mine. But since after creating 3 accounts (1 with 2 children) with different email addresses I could not get into the system to find out the actual rates, I did NOT apply for insurance. The system forced you to create an account to see the rates and then since the system was broken would not allow me to login. Unfortunately the government doesn't seem to understand basic math. Although that does explain the lack of a budget for 4 years. They cannot handle basic math skills.
More
Expand Replies (13) Reply
James
James 1 hour ago 0 43
The ACA was supposed to get 30 Million people enrolled. Enrollment period is Oct 1 to Dec 15, or 75 days, which means that 400,000 per day would have to get enrolled, not just applied. So in 20 days there should by 8 million already enrolled, and they got 500,000 applications?? How long will it take this community organizer to admit there is no way it is going to work? Only ones working hard to get in have pre existing conditions, or are getting it free, or highly subsidized, and will be costly for the insurers and the government. Insurers raise rates on those actually paying, government goes broke.
More
Expand Replies (2) Reply
Steve Porter
Steve Porter 1 hour ago 0 41
476,000 have applied. How many of those actually enrolled? The premiums and deductibles are astronomical and people are either unable or unwilling to pay these amounts. We were told it was affordable, it is not. We were told we could keep the Insurance we had if we wanted to, we can not. We were told we could keep our Doctor, but 40% of doctors have dropped their Medicaid Patients. Personally I think this whole thing has been and will continue to be a total Disaster.
More
Expand Replies (5) Reply
Catrinia
Catrinia 1 hour ago 0 22
Young healthy people generally have not much to lose financially if a catastrophic health event occurs, It doesn't make sense to them to buy insurance at this point in their lives. As the general population ages, health issues are more of a problem. Years ago, many of us were covered by our employer's insurance and didn't think about it too much. It worked because the money put into the system was much larger than what most of us used. Now with a poor economy and aging population and growing welfare burdens, it's difficult to devise a system that works for everyone. I don't have an answer.
More
Expand Replies (8) Reply
HOMER
HOMER 3 hours ago 1 92
The company who set up this flawed web-site was hired with no background check nor did the White House send out bids to companies. This company was fired by the country of Canada, and they are sueing them. So far our government has paid 172 million dollars to this company to set up the web-site which is unheard of. Many other companies would have only charged a fraction of this to set up the site, and I'm sure would have worked better then what we have....government again wasting our tax money.
More
Expand Replies (9) Reply
DEFAULT_USERNAME
Commenter 45 minutes ago 0 15
I tired to apply. I got as far as the verification of who I am page. Three out of four of the questions applied to me; I answered correctly. The last question didn't apply to me; I selected none. It came back as my identity could not be verified so I would have to call in order to verify my identity. Who has time for all this #$%$? All I can is we better not be penalized for not having insurance when they can't get their s**t right. I have already tried 3 times. Not gonna try much more.
More
Expand Replies (3) Reply
TJRRacing
TJRRacing 47 minutes ago 0 16
"Obama told advisers assembled in the Oval Office that the administration had to own up to the fact that there were no excuses for not having the website ready to operate as promised."
I don't know why he is crying about that. A large portion of the $634 million that he promised to pay this Canadian company to create the website will go right back in to his pockets from kickbacks. I mean, why else would you offer that amount when the job could have been done for well under one million bucks? It's obvious someone is getting a kickback.
More
Expand Replies (1) Reply
Wal
Wal 1 hour ago 0 15
The article says that there were 476,000 applications filed so far. What it doesn't say is that in order to receive a quote for coverage, you must first apply. It also does not say that the questions asked are very intrusive with no relavence to the insurance coverage and many people are refusing to answer them. So far, only about three thousand people have actually signed up to get coverage. I know that we are only in the first three weeks of enrollment, but those figures only amount to about one ten thousanth of one percent of the US population.
More
Reply
janine
janine 42 minutes ago 0 7
You have to submit an application before you can even look at the any of their options. Probably half of those applications are ppl being nosey or multiple applications. According to their cust service ppl I have 3 applications, which I only have 1, & I still cant look at the insurance options because their site is screwed up & my acct doesnt show the aplication, messages or a link for the insurance cmparisons. Working with a 3rd dept in 2 wk to solve the issue.
More
Reply
