Healthcare reform

More than 300,000 people have visited Kentucky’s health-care exchange website, and more than 26,000 people have signed up for plans, with 10,000 more “in the process of choosing,” Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear said.

Plain language and approachable design are two goals of the new model HIPAA notices.

“All that we are doing with health care impacts so much more than health care costs, health risk status and use of health care services – it impacts the business,” explained Bruce Sherman, MD, medical director of Employers Health Coalition.

After three years of trying to dismantle Obamacare, House Republicans now are seeking to use the website’s flawed debut to hasten its collapse.

In this list of key Obamacare provisions effective for the plan year beginning this January, which ones apply to you, and are you ready?

The state-run exchanges in Washington and Kentucky have received positive press about their websites working in comparison to the federal, but brokers haven’t had much hand in the success.

CGI Group, lead software developer for the 36 federally-run exchanges, acknowledges problems in Thursday's congressional hearing on healthcare.gov glitches, but asserts that "it will improve," and people will be able to enroll before penalties kick in.

Lawmakers grilled four government contractors Thursday morning on the Healthcare.gov glitches. CGI Group, the lead software developer for the 36 federally-run exchanges, acknowledged the problems but asserted that the final choice to "go live" on Oct. 1 was up to the CMS.

Josh Earnest, a White House spokesman, said earlier via Twitter that the “individual mandate timing hasn’t changed.” The deadline to get insurance remains March 31.

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

Health insurers stand to gain millions of customers in an expansion of private insurance options and the Medicaid program under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010. The industry, though, has raised alarms about faulty data they’ve received from the federal exchange since it opened on Oct. 1.

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.