By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR
By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — It doesn’t rival Amazon and Travelocity, but President Barack Obama’s much-maligned health insurance website finally seems to be working reasonably well most of the time.
Still, consumers are well-advised to verify, not just trust.
More than 3.7 million people visited HealthCare.gov this week — and it didn’t crash, administration spokeswoman Julie Bataille deadpanned Friday on a call with reporters.
Officials said 29,000 people enrolled the first two days of the week, exceeding total signups for the 36 states served by the federal site during October, the month of its problem-plagued launch.
Online Spanish-language signups, delayed because of initial problems, will finally go live this weekend in a “soft launch” to tease out any lurking glitches. Consumers around the country will be able to use the new feature at CuidadoDeSalud.gov. A promotional campaign in Spanish will follow.
Overall, work shifted from zapping technical gremlins that frustrated consumers to cleaning up garbled enrollment files the system has been delivering to insurers.
“The new process put in place this week is making a difference,” acknowledged Karen Ignagni, chief of the largest industry group, America’s Health Insurance Plans. “The enrollment files are getting better, but there is more work to be done to ensure consumers are covered.”
While not calling it an “error rate,” Bataille said mistakes on those files are now affecting 1 in 10 transactions with insurers, down from an estimated 25 percent.
She still recommends consumers verify enrollment with their insurer, and — importantly — pay their first month’s premium by Dec. 31.
As Obama invites consumers back to take a second look, here are some of the changes you can expect:
Speed and availability
Independent testers questioned the blazing Internet speeds claimed by techies at the Health and Human Services Department, and some of the state websites, but confirm there’s been noticeable progress.
“The trend is in the right direction … but there are still things they can do to make the user experience better,” said Michael Smith, a vice president of engineering at Compuware Corp., which helps companies monitor the technical performance of their websites.
As of Friday morning, the number of states where consumers are experiencing unacceptably long wait times had been cut to nine, down from 26 in late October. Conversely, Compuware now rates 17 states as “acceptable,” up from just six in October.
Window-shopping
Many consumers were puzzled and frustrated when the federal website went live because it would not let them browse health plans without first setting up an account.
The flaw drove many people to an accounts creation page that turned out to be riddled with bugs and contributed to the system’s early woes.
On Monday, HHS announced the deployment of a window-shopping function that lets prospective customers see plans and prices in their area, including previously unavailable details such as deductibles and cost-sharing, as well as provider networks.
Reset button
People who got stuck in the system can now zap away their old applications and start again.
To do that, you log into your account, select the application in progress and hit “remove.” You follow that by closing and reopening your web browser. Then, you log back in and start a new application.
The reset process might not be entirely foolproof because HHS advises consumers to reach out to the call center at 1-800-318-2596 if they have trouble.