Wednesday, December 25, 2013

White House, Desperate to Increase Enrollments, Gives More Time for #ObamaCare Sign-Ups

I first saw this report on my iPhone and thought the app needed to update.

But no, it's at the New York Times for Christmas morning, "Sign-Up Period Extended Again for Health Plan":
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration said Tuesday that it would provide more time for people to complete their applications for health insurance if they could show that they missed the deadline because of problems with the federal health care website.

The move was the latest in a series of deadline changes, exemptions and clarifications that have confused insurers and many Americans and opened the administration to increasing criticism from Republicans who have opposed the Affordable Care Act from the start and have repeatedly tried to overturn it.

It was not clear on Tuesday how many people would be affected, or how consumers would prove that website errors had prevented them from signing up by the deadline on Tuesday night.

The announcement itself was vague, saying only that if website problems had prevented any consumers from enrolling, they might qualify for what the government has called “a special enrollment period.” The administration did not say how long that would last. Nor did it define what website errors might be involved.

Republicans said the announcement — coming a day after the federal website recorded more than two million visits — showed that President Obama was desperate to increase enrollment, widely seen as a measure of the success of the health care law.
We're seeing changes now on a daily basis. This is totally unreal, and I've been following government and politics for a long time!

I simply have no idea what's going to happen, but clearly, as Glenn Reynolds points out in his most recent USA Today op-ed, the law's obviously not settled and the administration expects further problems well into 2014.

As always, I'll be on top of it, if for nothing else but the schadenfreude.

Continue reading.

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