Web traffic jam hampers federal exchanges

Meanwhile, for brokers in states with federally run exchanges that have been stingy about releasing exchange plan information, website problems at the main U.S. Department of Health and Human Services exchange site – HealthCare.gov – left visitors who just wanted to see the exchange plan menu staring at a screen that said, “Health Insurance Marketplace: Please wait.”

“We have a lot of visitors on our site right now and we’re working to make your experience here better,” exchange program managers said in the message. “Please wait here until we send you to the login page. Thanks for your patience!”

When a visitor got to the rare privilege of going to a log in page, the system seemed to require a visitor to set up a full-blown account, with a user name and a password, before letting the visitor see whether, for example, the HHS-run New Jersey exchange sells stand-alone dental plans designed for adults.

When this visitor used the account creation tool, the page for setting up password recovery security questions had no questions a visitor could use to complete the password recovery section and no obvious way for the visitor to get past that problem to see if the New Jersey exchange will sell stand-alone dental plans.

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius noted that the HealthCare.gov site was experiencing extremely heavy traffic and that site managers are happy to see such strong interest in the exchange program.

See also: 

• Exchanges hope to sail through shutdown
• Republican-led states brace for Oct. 1
• HHS delays SHOP Web enrollment launch