3 On Your Side: More Problems For Healthcare.gov
By Jim Donovan
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- More problems for the recent expansion of Affordable Care Act. For weeks people have complained about glitches on the Healthcare.gov website. Well late yesterday, into today, consumers couldn't even log on. 3 On Your Side Consumer Reporter Jim Donovan has the latest developments.
On Sunday a technical failure left users unable to access the site until late this afternoon. A vendor for Verizon, the company running the websites' data services hub, says it "experienced a failure in a networking component" - that service connects Healthcare.gov to the Internal Revenue Service and other databases used to determine eligibility.
Plagued with technical problems since its October 1st roll out, Healthcare.gov has been widely criticized and now Health and Human Services Secretary is being ridiculed on late night TV. A skit this weekend mocked Kathleen Sebelius.
"The roll out has been a disaster," says New Hampshire Senator Jeanne Shaheen. A Democrat, she's among those concerned. She says, "What I'm proposing is that we extend the period in which people can enroll, so we can make sure we get as many people who want health insurance able to enroll and be able to be covered."
The administration says the March 31st enrollment deadline remains firm. President Obama says, "We've got people working overtime, 24/7, to boost capacity and address these problems, every single day."
Last week the White House promised the majority of glitches would be fixed by the end of November. Up until yesterday the part of the system that went down on Sunday and Monday had been working relatively well.
