Alex Wayne

The promise of 50,000 people being able to simultaneously use the site by Saturday – twice the capacity of last week – will be tested by congressional Republicans.

Public support for the U.S. health care overhaul fell to its lowest level in a Kaiser Family Foundation survey after the Oct. 1 debut of government-run insurance marketplaces greeted consumers with breakdowns on websites, higher prices and potentially broken promises.

Kansas, North Dakota and other state insurance commissioners snubbed a meeting with President Barack Obama set up to discuss allowing some people to keep medical plans that don’t meet the requirements of the U.S. health law.

Consultants hired by the Obama administration told top officials at the White House and U.S. health department as early as March that construction of the government’s insurance website was at risk of failure, according to a document released by congressional Republicans.

Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee say it shows that public promises the project was on schedule from top administration officials were incorrect.

The lopsided enrollment between Medicaid, which is paid for with taxpayer money, and the private plans may boost criticism of the rising costs of the $1.4 trillion health law. High participation in the exchanges is critical to keeping the costs of medical coverage down.

As few as 20 or 30 enrollments per state per day are greeting the Obamacare marketplaces. With more congressional hearings on the rollout of the Affordable Care Act set to start tomorrow in the House, will lawmakers get some answers?

The new rules, which come five years after the Mental Health Parity act was passed, mean insurers won’t be able to charge higher co-payments or deductibles for mental illness or limit the duration of care.

Two days after the troubled online U.S. health exchange went live, just 248 people nationwide had successfully enrolled in insurance plans under President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act, documents show.

Republicans said they primarily want to know at a hearing today about the lack of transparency ahead of the rocky Oct. 1 debut of the insurance exchange, which is supposed to let people compare and buy health plans.

Computer servers hosting a key piece of Obamacare’s insurance enrollment program fails Sunday, leaving federal and independent state exchanges unable to provide most services.

In the months before the Obamacare health insurance website debuted, Kathleen Sebelius gave few hints that anything might be wrong.

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.

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.

The three-year effort to open the Affordable Care Act health insurance exchanges culminates today, beset by logistical delays and efforts by Republicans to shut down the U.S. government in protest.

The four-year slowdown in U.S. health care spending will end next year, and there is no sign the Affordable Care Act will significantly curb the acceleration in costs, government actuaries said in a report.

Randy Osban’s job selling ribs and brisket from a yellow trailer on Texas’s state road 71 offers a sweeping view of the hill country beyond Austin. One benefit his business doesn’t provide is health insurance.

The computer hub, a frequent target of Republicans, is designed to route data on customers using new insurance exchanges from seven federal agencies including the Internal Revenue Service and Social Security Administration.

A computer system underpinning the U.S. health care overhaul has completed security testing and is ready to go, the federal government says.