How we got the story
Beginning before dawn and through late afternoon, two AJC reporters and an editor tried more than 40 times to get onto the Health Insurance Marketplace website and never succeeded. We received an email from a woman who said she successfully navigated the whole site and learned what her options are, but we were unable to reach her to confirm her identity. There are almost certainly others who accessed the site in Georgia, but none of the experts, officials, advocates and ordinary consumers with whom we spoke was able to get in, and neither were we.
Help with the exchange
Use the live chat on HealthCare.gov. (This was only sporadically available on Tuesday.)
Find someone who can help you in person at localhelp.healthcare.gov. A search of the central Atlanta ZIP code 30303 turned up 35 listings.
Access denied.
The system is down.
Please wait.
Georgians hoping to get their first peek at the new Health Insurance Marketplace website on Tuesday found themselves staring at error messages, blank screens and drop-down menus that wouldn’t drop down.
Nationwide, a wave of nearly 3 million consumers broke over the site, leading to slow processing times and frustrating waits. The state marketplaces, most of which are run by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, are a cornerstone of the Affordable Care Act.
“Needless to say, this is very disappointing,” said Bobby Mitchell, a small-business owner in Fayette County, who tried to shop for coverage. “What a mess!”
More than 2.8 million Americans had visited the HealthCare.gov site since midnight, said Marilyn Tavenner, head of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Tuesday afternoon. Officials said the site had successfully enrolled people in new insurance plans but declined to say how many and asserted that the system is ready. Tavenner acknowledged Tuesday’s glitches but said they are being fixed.
“This is day one of a six-month process,” she said. “We’re in a marathon, not a sprint and we need your help.”
Nearly 900,000 Georgians are expected to shop for health insurance through the online marketplace, also called an exchange.
The exchanges are designed mostly for people who don’t already get health insurance through their job, such as the self-employed, unemployed and workers whose employers don’t offer affordable coverage.
Five insurance companies are offering dozens of health plans on the Georgia exchange site, where consumers will be able to compare prices and benefits. People will also be able to determine through the site whether they qualify for federal tax credits to help buy coverage. Plans bought on the exchange by Dec. 15 will take effect Jan. 1.
Late Tuesday afternoon, however, users continued to wait just to be sent to a log-in page.
Mitchell and his wife, who watched their premiums skyrocket in recent years, had anxiously waited for the exchange to open. But Mitchell’s experience so far has been “a disaster.” He tried several times around midnight and again later Tuesday but hit error message after error message.
It’s especially frustrating as the owner of an e-commerce business, said Mitchell, who sells educational music books online.
“It makes you wonder if the marketplace was even volume-tested before launch,” he said. “With the millions spent building this site, you would think that it could handle the volume of requests.”
HHS officials said Tuesday that the site had been thoroughly tested but that they hadn’t anticipated the level of traffic on the first day.
Supporters of the law say glitches and hiccups are to be expected with the launch of any massive program, and people will have plenty of time to sign up on the exchange in the coming months. Open enrollment ends March 31.
While there might be some initial frustration, consumers aren’t likely to give up, said Bill Rencher, who heads the health access program at Georgia Watch, a consumer group. A long period of anger and frustration followed the launch of the Medicare Part D prescription drug program in 2006, but that ended up being a popular program, Rencher said.
“(We’re) telling people, if they can, to wait a week until things calm down. It’s just so busy right now,” Rencher said. “In some ways, it’s a good sign. There are a lot of people out there who want to sign up for health coverage for themselves and their families.”
Obamacare opponents say Tuesday’s troubles, however, are the inevitable result of implementing a disastrous law.
“We’ve received warning signs for months now that Obamacare wasn’t ready for prime time,” U.S. Rep. Phil Gingrey, R-Marietta, said in a statement. “Now, with exchange malfunctions in more than 30 states on opening day, the best HHS can do is tweet, ‘I’m sorry?’”
State Sen. Judson Hill, R-Marietta, said the exchange has raised worries about potential medical identity theft.
“I’m greatly concerned about the vulnerability of patient records, especially after all of the technology problems experienced on the first day of online health care exchange enrollment,” Hill said in a statement. “Sadly, those who will be largely impacted by these two consequences are also the individuals who are in the greatest need of health care.”
Obama administration officials say they’re confident consumers’ privacy will be protected.
Helping Georgians through the exchange is going to be more difficult in some states than others, since leaders here haven’t worked to help the cause, said Liz Flowers, executive director of the Georgia Senate Democratic Caucus. Nonprofit groups with few resources are taking on that role instead, Flowers said.
“It would be a lot easier if we actually had responsible leadership at the state level tasked to help Georgia citizens get through this,” she said.
Cindy Holtzman, an Atlanta insurance broker for 22 years, said she had no luck getting access to the exchange Tuesday either as a consumer or a broker.
“Totally frustrating,” she said.
When she couldn’t get access to the marketplace, Holtzman said, she spent about two hours waiting for a representative to pop up on the site’s “live chat” option. But no agent ever appeared on her screen to answer questions. She eventually made it through a couple of steps on the site, only to be told: “The system is unavailable.”
“I will try and go on again, but I don’t think I’m going to get very far,” she said.
Advocacy groups urged consumers to be patient.
So much of the build-up and communication they’ve been hearing is about Oct. 1, but it’s really important for people to understand they have six months to select a plan, said Jeff Graham, executive director of Georgia Equality, a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender advocacy group.
“I would certainly hope that folks will understand any time something this big goes live all around the country at once, they should expect some glitches,” he said. “Most people will find once they work through the system, they’ll be very pleased with some of the results they will find.”
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