The old adage “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again” is quickly becoming all-too familiar for Americans attempting to enroll in Obamacare’s health insurance marketplaces. And as one reporter discovered, success is becoming more and more of a distant goal.
CNN’s Senior Medical Correspondent Elizabeth Cohen has attempted to log on to healthcare.gov multiple times since the Oct. 1 launch date of Obamacare’s health insurance marketplaces, but is getting nowhere fast.
“I’ve been trying since day one to get an account and log in on healthcare.gov,” Cohen said. “I’ve failed again … and again … and again.”
And Cohen’s failures aren’t limited to the Affordable Care Act’s website. The CNN reporter attempted to call the marketplaces’ now-notorious phone number, only to be told the volume of callers is high and to try again “during off-peak hours.”
So Cohen did — at 10:30 pm., 7 a.m. and 3 a.m. — only to hit a wall yet again.
Since the marketplaces’ roll out, healthcare.gov has been plagued with error messages, long waits and notices reporting the system is down. And with the exchanges two weeks into their opening, more glitches arise by the day.
While Congressional Republicans continue to express their discontent with Obamacare, citing the failure of the exchanges as only contributing to the “trainwreck” narrative, some of President Obama’s closest advisers are sensing what a disaster the roll out has been.
“This is excruciatingly embarrassing for the White House and for the Department of Health and Human Service,” former Obama Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Monday. “This was bungled badly. This is not a server problem … this is a website architecture problem. I think it is excruciatingly embarrassing.”
Check out Cohen’s disastrous experience below.
