Beating expectations,
President Barack Obama's health care overhaul was on track to sign up more than
7 million Americans for health insurance on deadline day Monday, government
officials told The Associated Press.
The 7 million target, thought to be out of reach by most
experts, was in sight on a day that saw surging consumer interest as well as
vexing computer glitches that slowed sign-ups on the
HealthCare.gov website.
Two government officials
confirmed the milestone, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were
not authorized to discuss the matter ahead of an official announcement.
Seven million was the
original target set by the Congressional Budget Office for enrollment in
taxpayer-subsidized private health insurance through new online markets created
under Obama's signature legislation.
That was scaled back to 6
million after the disastrous launch of HealthCare.gov last fall. Several
state-run websites also had crippling problems. Americans who rushed to apply
for health insurance Monday faced long, frustrating waits and a new spate of
website ills on deadline day.
"This is like trying to find a parking spot at Wal-Mart on
Dec. 23," said Jason Stevenson, working with a Utah nonprofit group
helping people enroll.
At times, more than
125,000 people were simultaneously using HealthCare.gov, straining it beyond
its capacity. For long stretches Monday, applicants were shuttled to a virtual
waiting room where they could leave an email address and be contacted later.
Officials said the site had not crashed but was
experiencing very heavy volume. The website, which was receiving 1.5 million
visitors a day last week, had recorded about 2 million through 3 p.m. EDT. Call
centers have more than 840,000 calls.
Supporters of the health care law fanned out across
the country in a final dash to sign up uninsured Americans. People not signed
up for health insurance by the deadline, either through their jobs or on their
own, were subject to being fined by the IRS, and that threat was helping drive
the final dash.
The administration announced last week that people
still in line by midnight would get extra time to enroll.
The website stumbled early in the day — out of
service for nearly four hours as technicians patched a software bug. Another
hiccup in early afternoon temporarily kept new applicants from signing up, and
then things slowed further. Overwhelmed by computer problems when launched last
fall, the system has been working much better in recent months, but independent
testers say it still runs slowly.
At Chicago's Norwegian American Hospital, people
began lining up shortly after 7 a.m. to get help signing up for subsidized
private health insurance.
Lucy Martinez, an unemployed single mother of two
boys, said she'd previously tried to enroll at a clinic in another part of the
city but there was always a problem. She'd wait and wait and they wouldn't call
her name, or they would ask her for paperwork that she was told earlier she
didn't need, she said. Her diabetic mother would start sweating so they'd have
to leave.
She's heard "that this would be better
here," said Martinez, adding that her mother successfully signed up Sunday
at a different location.
At St. Francis Hospital in Wilmington, Del.,
enrollment counselor Hubert Worthen plunged into a long day. "I got my
energy drink," he said. "This is epic, man."
At a Houston community center, there were immigrants
from Ethiopia, Nepal, Eritrea, Somalia, Iraq, Iran and other conflict-torn
areas, many of them trying anew after failing to complete applications
previously. In addition to needing help with the actual enrollment, they needed
to wait for interpreters. Many had taken a day off from work, hoping to meet
the deadline.
The White House and other supporters of the law were
hoping for an enrollment surge that would confound skeptics.
The insurance markets — or exchanges — offer
subsidized private health insurance to people who don't have access to coverage
through their jobs. The federal government is taking the lead in 36 states,
while 14 other states plus Washington, D.C., are running their own enrollment
websites.
New York, running its own site, reported more than
812,000 had signed up by Sunday morning, nearly 100,000 of them last week.
However,
it's unclear what those numbers may mean.
The administration hasn't said how many of the 6
million people nationally who had signed up before the weekend ultimately
closed the deal by paying their first month's premiums. Also unknown is how
many were previously uninsured — the real test of Obama's health care overhaul.
In addition, the law expands coverage for low-income people through Medicaid,
but only about half the states have agreed to implement that option.
Cheering on the deadline-day sign-up effort, Health
and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius planned to spend much of the day
Monday working out of the department's TV studio, conducting interviews by
satellite with stations around the country.
hough March 31 was
the last day officially to sign up, millions of people are potentially eligible
for extensions granted by the administration.
Those include people who had begun enrolling by the
deadline but didn't finish, perhaps because of errors, missing information or
website glitches. The government says it will accept paper applications until
April 7 and take as much time as necessary to handle unfinished cases on
HealthCare.gov. Rules may vary in states running their own insurance
marketplaces.
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