States, Insurers Look to Bypass Health Care Site - East Idaho News
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States, Insurers Look to Bypass Health Care Site

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Getty 120213 healthcaresite?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1385988490890Bloomberg via Getty Images(WASHINGTON) — Some states and insurers are seeking ways to bypass the troubled technology associated with the Affordable Care Act, despite recent announcements by the Obama administration that the online marketplace functions smoothly.

Planned and unplanned outages on the health care site have created problems for several states, which are now looking to separate themselves from the federal infrastructed used to confirm applications, according to the Wall Street Journal.

James Wadleigh, chief information officer of Connecticut’s exchange, told the Wall Street Journal he wanted the state to be self-reliant and provide health care services even when the federal government’s functions are affected by technological maintenance.

Insurers also told the Obama administration they want more help to enroll customers directly. A pilot program was started with insurers in Florida, Ohio and Texas to help identify problems in the system.

After Nov. 30, the deadline to improve the website, officials declared the site fixed.

“We’ve doubled the system’s capacity and HealthCare.gov can now support its intended volume,” said Jeff Zients, the administration official overseeing repairs to the system, on a conference call with reporters Sunday.

A report released by the Department of Health and Human Services says the marketplace, which was down roughly 60 percent of the time in October, is now much more stable, but problems still persist.

In the report, officials signaled that there are still concerns about slow-downs during high traffic periods and the real culprit of the malfunctions were significant software and hardware glitches.

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