Obama Urges Patience With Obamacare Website Despite Glitches
In an interview with The Associated Press released Saturday, the president blamed higher-than-anticipated traffic for the spotty access to healthcare.gov, where prospective customers can comparison-shop health insurance plans in an online marketplace. “What’s happened is the website got overwhelmed by the volume,” he said. “Folks are working around the clock and have been systematically reducing the wait times, but we are confident that over the course of the six months - because it’s important to remember people have six months to sign up - that we are going to probably exceed what anybody expected in terms of the amount of interest that people have.”
In the meantime, the president said, Americans shouldn’t “give up” trying to purchase insurance through the exchanges. “When people are shopping for insurance, they visit a site or make phone calls or look at brochures five, six, seven times before they make a final decision,” he said. “And they’re not going to have to pay premiums until December - the insurance doesn’t start until January. So they’ll have plenty of time.”
“Each day the wait times are reduced,” he added. “Each day, more and more people are signing up, and the product will save you money. People will save hundreds of dollars - in some cases, thousands of dollars - as a consequence of being able to get health insurance that is priced for them and gives them the choices that they need.”
In an effort to resolve the technology glitches, the enrollment portions of the website will be taken offline during off-peak hours throughout the weekend, the Health and Human Services Department announced Friday. The department promised to enact “significant improvements in the online consumer experience” by Monday.
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