Wellness

To repair its troubled health care website, the Obama administration may need to add project workers with fresh talent, take portions of the system off line for days or weeks, and conduct more comprehensive tests to prevent crashes and delays, technology experts say.

Avalere Health’s Elizabeth Carpenter urges everyone to remember the big picture, not just the Obamacare marketplace, “but also on the broader health care system and how things are evolving.”

As intelligence emerges about failed and rushed testing in the weeks leading up to the Oct. 1 launch of Healthcare.gov, an expert close to state-run exchanges says these issues may not be as easily fixed as the president alluded to on Monday.

The introduction was so rushed that, as recently as last week, the exchange’s computer code contained placeholder language that programmers typically use in preliminary drafts.

One expert says the state systems do, by comparison, seem to be enjoying some smoother sailing, though major backlogs and service interruptions have been reported in systems from coast to coast.

President Barack Obama said the widespread flaws afflicting online insurance exchanges under his health care law represent only a portion of the program, as he sought to fend off critics of his signature legislative achievement.

The “bugs” that have plagued the rollout of U.S. health insurance exchanges will be fixed by Dec. 15, said Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus, the lead author of the 2010 health care law.

The Obama administration said it has reached out to the “best and brightest” from inside and outside of government to get its health insurance exchange up to speed, even as it faces another missed deadline for the rollout.

The HHS says that despite the technology limitations almost 500,000 Americans have now submitted applications for health insurance through all 51 exchanges.

In the most populous state in nation, agents are not happy with the way the state-run health care exchange is treating them and there are many more road bumps to cross in the near future, said a San Diego-area broker Friday at AHIP’s State Issues Conference.