While the president was on TV Monday conceding that healthcare.gov is a mess — but insisting that the Affordable Care Act is not — the AJC was trolling platforms and browsers, trying to penetrate the recalcitrant website. After intermittent attempts all day, it finally happened, only on Explorer, at 5:25 p.m.
Although successful entries still seem to be the exception, another Georgian who hit paydirt surfaced on Monday. Lissie Stahlman of Atlanta said that, using a combination of patience, luck and different platforms, she got all the way through the system late last week — after trying on and off for three weeks — and enrolled in a new plan. Stahlman, 60, says she saved 50 percent over her current premiums and cut her deductible from $5,000 to $2,500.
“Keep trying,” she said. “Be patient. If you encounter a glitch, give it a couple of days. My big advice is don’t bother with the chat folks. Go directly to the toll-free number. I called three different times and got through really fast each time. They seemed to be very knowledgeable.”
Despite these signs of progress, it’s hard to know the actual state of the website in Georgia. The Health and Human Services Department on Monday declined to provide any data on the exchange’s performance in Georgia. No numbers until mid-November, a spokesman said.
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