As a House committee released more details about the roll out of the Obama health law, the stories about troubles with insurance offerings under the reform measure continue to get a lot of attention in the news media, and not just from sources that are kind to the Republican Party.
"Health law's losers lash out," read the front page lead headline in Monday's Washington Post, the second straight day that a tough story on the troubles of the health care law had run in that spot in the Post.
The other story from Sunday's paper delved inside the preparation for the October 1 launch of healthcare.gov, and claimed that certain staffers working on the project "rooted for" a September 5 demonstration of the site for White House officials to fail, so that the project could be delayed.
"Healthcare.gov: How a startup failed to launch," read that Post headline; the story included some frank criticism from Democratic Party supporters about the creation of the federal exchange site.
As for what was going on since October 1, the House Oversight Committee released more internal notes about what went on starting on October 1; you can read those at http://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/2013-11-01-War-Room-Notes-10-3-to-10-21.pdf
My email inbox continues to fill as well with stories of people who say they are encountering problems either with the web site, or with premiums and deductibles which they say are unaffordable.
David Cass told me that since October 1, his wife has been caught in a never-ending loop on healthcare.gov - and is getting nowhere, back and forth between pages that say click on "Resume Enrollment" and "Application Details."
"This has been going on since Oct. 1st," Cass told me in an email.
"Live Chat most recent moderator "Michael" has no solution, tells her to call toll-free number," Cass said.. "Toll-free number is busy or unavailable - always."
Another woman from Florida sent along documentation of her signup process, and examples of the information that she can send in to make sure she does qualify for subsidies.
"You need to send the Marketplace proof of your yearly income for 2014. Examples of documents you can send include:
· Wages and tax statement (W-2)
· Pay stub
· Letter from employer
· Cost of living adjustment letter and other benefit verification notices
· Lease agreement
· Copy of a check paid to the household member
· Bank or investment fund statement
· Document or letter from Social Security Administration (SSA)
· Form SSA 1099 Social Security benefits statement
· Self-employed ledger
· Letter from government agency for unemployment benefits
If you do not provide documentation by the following date, your eligibility for health care coverage may end: January 27, 2014."
Over the weekend, healthcare.gov was down for about 12 hours to add in new software and hardware updates to make it move more quickly.
Obama Administration officials have promised that the site will be humming along by the end of November.
That's not as far away as it might seem, as the Congress holds two more hearings this week on the troubled rollout of the Obama health law.
