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On the day that the federal government shut down, the Obamacare exchanges opened up—barely.
Tens of thousands of Americans virtually queued up at healthcare.gov and more than a dozen other state-run health exchange websites on Tuesday. But most would-be shoppers couldn’t access the sites, and 24 hours later, technical problems remained widespread.
So what’s the verdict on the exchanges’ debut? Citing IT glitches, Republican critics are calling it a snafu. Citing consumer demand, federal officials are calling it a victory.
On balance, it’s way, way too early to judge success—especially since officials refuse to release some very crucial numbers—but the exchanges’ long-awaited launch did offer several takeaways. Here are five of them.
1) Glitches were a real pain—and a real issue
How bad were yesterday’s IT problems?
Even Massachusetts and Utah—two states with experience running online insurance exchanges—saw their sites temporarily crash on Tuesday.
By Wednesday afternoon, only seven state-based exchanges seemed to be fully functional, while D.C.’s exchange, seven other state exchanges, and all 36 exchanges that relied on the federal government’s system weren’t working, according to our rolling tracker at the Advisory Board Daily Briefing.
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