Warning: include(/var/www/include/ads/Delila_TSC_2.html) [function.include]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /var/www/html/statecolumn.com/news/wp-content/themes/TSC_theme/desktop/normal.php on line 119
Warning: include() [function.include]: Failed opening '/var/www/include/ads/Delila_TSC_2.html' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/share/pear:/usr/share/php') in /var/www/html/statecolumn.com/news/wp-content/themes/TSC_theme/desktop/normal.php on line 119
Warning: include(/var/www/include/ads/Delila_TSC_3.html) [function.include]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /var/www/html/statecolumn.com/news/wp-content/themes/TSC_theme/desktop/normal.php on line 125
Warning: include() [function.include]: Failed opening '/var/www/include/ads/Delila_TSC_3.html' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/share/pear:/usr/share/php') in /var/www/html/statecolumn.com/news/wp-content/themes/TSC_theme/desktop/normal.php on line 125
Government officials and IT experts were aware there were serious problems with President Obama’s online health insurance enrollment process, but went ahead and launched it anyway, according to a report in The Washington Post.
Just a few days before the website went online, government officials and contractors tested it to see if it could handle tens of thousands of consumers simultaneously applying for health insurance under Obama’s new healthcare law, the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare. The system reportedly crashed during a simulation after only a few hundred people tried to log in at the same time.
Inexplicably, federal health officials opted to launch the website on October 1 as planned despite a virtual guarantee that the system would be plagued with serious glitches. So, they hardly could have been surprised when shortly after the website went public, it froze up when about 2,000 users simultaneously tried to complete the first step of the enrollment process.
President Obama tried to reassure Americans Monday by saying the website glitches would be fixed quickly and that government officials were “doing everything we can possibly do” to fix them. He added that “some of the best IT talent in the country” was working around the clock to get it done.
“No one is madder about the website than I am, which means it’s going to get fixed,” Obama said.
White House officials say it’s too soon to think about delaying Obamacare’s individual mandate, which requires most Americans to be covered by health insurance next year–whether privately, through their employer, or through Obamacare’s health insurance exchanges–or pay a fine.
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney explained Monday that the new law protects people who couldn’t sign up for coverage from incurring a tax penalty because it doesn’t apply in cases where an individual didn’t have “access to” affordable health insurance.
Obamacare is taking an alarming hit from public opinion over the flaws in the website. A Washington Post-ABC News poll released Monday shows that 56 percent of those surveyed believe the glitches reflect deeper problems with the president’s new healthcare law. Nevertheless, overall support for the law seems to be growing, with 46 percent of those polled saying they support it now, compared with 42 percent last month.
