The Department of Health and Human Services is promising consumers a simple enrollment process, but the federal marketplace website, along with a number of state exchanges, were glitchy or non-functioning during the morning of Oct. 1, as software kinks were exposed and servers were strained.
Connecticut's insurance exchange, Access Health CT, was partly open for shopping on the first day of open enrollment. Officials promised that early problems, like website non-responsiveness, will be fixed as they're detected, while consumers can still enroll over-the-phone or at select locations. Note the website display errata:
State and federal partnership exchanges were also live, like Get Covered Illinois, but many of them linked back to Healthcare.gov, the federal marketplace, which wasn't consistently available for comparison or subsidy calculation.
The DC Health Link is delaying some of its roll out for Medicaid eligibility determinations and tax credit calculations "due to a high error rate discovered through extensive systems testing." But health plans are available for pursuing, such as these two plans for a 30-year-old earning about $25,000 from the Petworth neighborhood, albeit without subsidy calculation and with some display bugs (note the links on the bottom).
At the same time, a number of exchanges, like Kentucky's Kynect, were functioning pretty well, with minor issues related mostly to web traffic.
While some HIXs are requiring potential shoppers to create an account before looking at their potential options, Kynect lets users peruse their options based on their age, location and income. Consumers also have the option of setting the range of premiums and cost-sharing they're looking for, and then seeing those plans.
Here are some of the health plans and their prices available to a 30-year-old living in greater Louisville and earning about $25,000:
Covered California is another HIX that's forging ahead mostly in tact on the first day of enrollment.
The exchange's website lets potential shoppers peruse plans and their estimated subsidies before creating any account. Here are some of the bronze and silver plan options available to a 30-year-old in Culver City, in western Los Angeles County, earning about $30,000:
A rather small exchange, Health Source Rhode Island, is also mostly up and running with an easy preview for potental shoppers. For a 30-year-old earning about $25,000, Health Source first explains their coverage options and then shows some of the available plans from the two participating insuers, along with estimated premium support.
