HealthCare Website To Run Smoothly By End Of November: White House

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Jeff Zients, a long-time economic adviser to the White House, tapped by the Obama Administration to help fix the problems of the HealthCare.gov, said the website is fixable and will work smoothly by the end of November.

HealthCare

HealthCare website to run smoothly soon

During a press conference on Friday, Zients said, “We’re confident [that] by the end of November, HealthCare.gov will be smooth for a vast majority of users. It’s going to take a lot of work and some time, but there’s a clear path forward.”

According to him, the team, composed of government and private sectors, already completed their assessment regarding the technical flaws of the website, and promised that there will be “meaningful improvements” on its performance every week.

CEOs meeting with Obama Administration

Last Wednesday, the CEOs of leading insurance companies met with the top officials of the Obama Administration to resolve the technical problems crippling HealthCare.gov. They identified that the primary problem was due to corrupted or questionable data in “834 forms.” There is a problem in direct enrollment.

Zients said the assessment team identified a “punch list” of dozens of issues affecting the performance and functionality of the HealthCare.gov website. According to him, their main priority is to resolve the application data received by insurers from the federal exchange. He said that they might find more problems ahead, which will be added to the list.

The Department of Human and Health Services engaged the services of Quality Software Systems Inc (QSSI) to supervise the repair of the website. The company built the insurance marketplace federal data hub.

Julie Bataille on federal data hub

CMS Communications Director Julie Bataille said, “QSSI is familiar with the components of the system, and the company did a good job supporting the federal data hub.” According to her, both parties are still working on changing the existing contract of QSSI to add its compensation for its new job.

More Democrat Senators are requesting the extension of the open enrollment period of the healthcare law. However, the officials of the Obama Administration argued that people have enough time to sign up for coverage since the website is expected to be fixed by the end of November.

According to Bataille, “People will be able to apply by December 15 to get coverage by January 1.” On the other hand, Zients said 90 percent of people will now be able to create accounts on the website, but only 30 percent will be able to complete the full application process.

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