Heavy traffic hits health care exchange websites on first day

[brooklynite]

Source: Chicago Tribune

The U.S. administration on Tuesday encouraged potential enrollees in Obamacare health coverage to seek in-person assistance from a call center and other sources after technical glitches emerged at the debut of the law's new online healthcare marketplaces.

A federally run marketplace for consumers in 36 states began posting error messages soon after the system opened for enrollment at 7 a.m., citing online traffic as a reason for the difficulties. An administration official said experts were aware of the issue and were working to address it.

...snip...

Consumers attempting to log on to the new exchanges were met with the message: "We have a lot of visitors on our site right now and we’re working to make your experience here better. Please wait here until we send you to the log-in page. Thank you for your patience!"

The delay was as long as four minutes at 7:10 a.m. Those seeking customer service encountered additional delays.

Read more: http://www.chicagotribune.com/health/chi-obamacare-affordable-care-act-20131001,0,5851135.story

[wyldwolf]

1. I'd love to see the server logs.

I wouldn't put it past the Right to arrange a DOS attack on the site.

[durablend]

3. Hell, I'd bet money on it n/t

[lumberjack_jeff]

21. Exactly. n/t

[sweetloukillbot]

35. I think I read something about Teabaggers encouraging it n/t

[jwirr]

2. LOL Went to DirectExpress to make sure my SSI check was in and they are experiencing tech difficulty

I would guess a lot of others were doing just what I was.

[hedgehog]

4. So the biggest problem with Obamacare is that people are so eager to sign up

that they were crashing the servers 10 minutes after it became effective!

[hedgehog]

5. I just checked - at 10:23 AM the New York State site is down.

[question everything]

6. Good. Let's show them how "the nation does not want Obamacare" (nt)

[Heather MC]

8. They are stupid they will say

See the law is not ready TOLD YOU Delay Delay Delay

[Sunlei]

7. I wait a couple days. Kind of like when a new game is released, qlitches and server will crash :)

[winstars]

10. As an owner of many Apple devices... we have until Jan, actually March I think.... nt

[Arkana]

15. Pretty much. They'll add more servers to deal with the load.

If it had gone off without a hitch, I'd have been shocked.

[Melissa G]

9. Finally got to login but was kicked out

after 3 attempts I got off.

[BlueStreak]

11. I hit a functional bug, not a load-related issue

In creating my account, I have to answer three security questions. But the pull-downs for the questions were empty. I tried just typing in three random answers, but it told me I had selected the same security question, which is not allowed, nad rejected my account creation.

[kathysart_decoration]

37. Same problems - not happy

I logged on at 7AM Central Standard time and had the very same issues with the security boxes when I tried to do an account creation. It is now 11:44 AM and I have tried to log on in various way, including calling the 800#, where I end up going round and round with no where to go. I am incredibly frustrated.
There are excuses that I have made, and that I am reading on this site, however, I am no longer making them. Quite frankly, the Administration should have, given the time-frame for when this was going to happen, put up a system that was not only ready for this, but was more-then-ready, including with any systems needed to not shut it down the way it seems to have been shut down on so many levels. They knew this was coming for several years. They had all that time to prepare for all those people without insurance who would be flooding this site.
The Administration has just handed ammunition over to all the people more-than-ready to say they (the Administration) is just a bunch of not-ready-for-prime-time players - because that is now the way I am seeing them. They should have been well prepared for this. They knew it was coming. This first line of defense should have/could have been pretty flawless, and it is not. No excuses. They make themselves look silly.
If they can do drones, they should have been able to do this without all this unprofessionalism. Yes, I am prepared for the onslaught of criticism I will receive. This was just too important to f____ up the way they have. You don't give the enemy a loaded gun - especially not now.

[AltrCargo]

39. I have the same problem...I gave up, will try later

[chill_wind]

40. Just checked again 8 hrs later

The security question drop down menus are still broken. Surely they know that. They can't fix this? They were working initially earlier this AM, but then there were other problems that still prevented me from eventually getting an account- (ie an empty "confirmation" email with no validation url in it.) It's not on my end.

Tomorrow,perhaps....

[BlueStreak]

43. This is ridiculous. And the chat system doesn't work either

so we can't even find out if they are aware of the problem.

[BlueStreak]

44. This system is so screwed up it is beyond complete incompetence

They finally fixed the security question pull-down problem, so I proceeded to create the account, carefully noting my userid and password.

Fail #2: They require you to verify your email through a clickback. I did this and got an error message. I had to try that several times before I finally got the "Success Account Created: message.

Fail #3: I go to log on and it says my information is invalid. I don't believe that because I was very careful to note the userid and PW. Nonetheless, I use the "forgot password" link. This sends a password recover email to me. That link isn't clickable.

Fail #4: So I paste the un-clickable link into the web browser to simulate clicking the link in my email.. And I get "We weren't able to process your request because we couldn't find a Marketplace profile that matched the information that you provided."

Did anybody even test this thing?

[handmade34]

12. Vermont Health Connect is down

[mountain grammy]

13. On the first day a four minute wait? Oh sweet Jesus, what a failure!

We have 3 months and have been waiting 50 years.

[Arkana]

14. If we were going to pronounce things a failure because they got slammed on certain days,

then we'd have to ban all forms of online unemployment insurance filing. I remember that you physically could not access the page on Sundays.

[hedgehog]

16. I don't think this is failure, i think it is overwhelming success!

[mountain grammy]

19. Exactly!

and maybe it's busier because the Republicans in Congress just dumped a few 100 thousand into unemployment. But they are still rich, so it's all good.

[tomm2thumbs]

29. Exactly -- like traffic on the first day of back to school -- it's a part of life

I guess it is akin to complaining about lines at the Apple Store on the first day of release of the new iPhone.

[wyldwolf]

33. four minute waits?? We told you it would be like Canada! </sarcasm>

[nvme]

17. Three attempts so far

I am from Florida and the healthcare.gov keeps giving me error messages. I get through all 3 screens to set it my account and then if hits me with the error message. It is pissing me off! I want a rate so i know what i have to work with.

[mountain grammy]

22. Have some patience.. Americans have been waiting a long time for this..

It's the first day! I've been looking at the Colorado Exchange for a month while they built it, but will wait a week or so before getting on to apply for my husband and daughter (I'm 65.) I figure it'll be clogged with teabaggers for a week or so, but they are fairly stupid and have a short attention span so it should open up fairly quickly.

[hedgehog]

18. 10:47 and New York is back, baby!

[Azathoth]

20. The site is broken

It's not just DOS timeouts. It's broken implementation/logic, links that still point to unreachable test servers, etc. Sure, there is plenty of time to get things sorted out, but this is sad.

It wouldn't have been so bad if they had stopped with the fucking secrecy and just published the plans and rates as they were approved so that people knew what was coming and could even begin estimating their subsidies beforehand. Instead, they kept everything secret like this was some kind of corporate PR-driven product launch media event, and now they've got a nation of 300 million people desperately trying to access a broken website on launch day to finally discover what they're being required by law to buy.

[mountain grammy]

23. I've been looking into that for a couple of months now, where've you been?

[Azathoth]

24. Really, what's your rate?

Either quote it, or just admit that you're a smartass.

[chill_wind]

26. I'm afraid so.

After much trying, I succeeded in almost creating an account, only to receive an empty confirmation email in the last step that was void of the usual necessary link to actually validate the account. Nothing but a header. No amount of retrying since has accomplished anything.

[BlueStreak]

30. Thisis not very encouraging.

The stuff I am seeing is basic coding problems, not load-related. It is as if even the most basic testing did not take place.

And if we follow the money, I have no doubt we'll find this was outsourced to somebody like Rick Scott who makes a fortune on government contracts by over-billing and under-delivering.

[kestrel91316]

34. Healthcare.gov doesn't have plans and prices. Those are on your state exchange website.

Healthcare.gov has worked without a hitch for as long as it's been up (until today). I know - I've spent a LOT of time there.

[Azathoth]

36. WTF are you talking about

Healthcare.gov *IS* the state exchange website for the majority of us. Judging by your avatar, I'm guessing you're fortunate enough to live in a state that is completely running its own exchange. Congratulations to you, but the rest of us haven't even been able to *see* our plans yet.

[santamargarita]

25. That's good news

[tofuandbeer]

27. Probably a lot of curiosity as well...

I don't need insurance, but was going to look at the site today; but out of politeness, I'll wait a few weeks or so.

[cyberswede]

31. I poked aroud a bit late last night...

I figured it wouldn't interfere with many actual users at 1:00 a.m.

I like the site - easy to find information, etc.

I hope everyone who wants to sign up today has an easy time of it.

[tofuandbeer]

32. Cool. Thx for the info. I'm actually biting my nails wanting to look at it.

I'll do like you and check it out late at night.
Thx for the tip.

[tomm2thumbs]

28. Had no problems here -- can only speak for myself

Was pretty peppy actually -- figured it might be sluggish but not at all.

[Zorra]

38. I can't log on, and I've had an account for over a month.

I get the log in page, I log in, and then get redirected to a blank page the has an address that says

https://www.healthcare.gov/marketplace/auth/userprofile

[progressivebydesign]

41. Am I late to the game, or did they PLAN the shutdown this way?

I mean, is it common knowledge that they scheduled the shut down to coincide with this to take away the thunder??

[Thor_MN]

42. But, but, but, they said no one wants Obamcare. They said the vast majority was against it.

How can it be that there was lots of traffic if no one wants it?

[yellowcanine]

45. Sounds as if the people are "voting with their feet." GOPers used to love to say that in regard to

people moving to Red States. Well it is coming back to bite them now.