More than 175 pages of internal Obama administration memos, obtained by the House Oversight Committee, released Tuesday and reviewed by ABC News, present the most detailed account yet of the troubled rollout of thefederal health insurance exchange, HealthCare.gov.
While there are no bombshell revelations, the documents make clear that the administration grossly underestimated the scope of the website's technical problems; struggled to contain widespread confusion among insurers and applicants; and now faces a barrage of new challenges triggered by its emphasis on paper applications.
The memos from Oct. 1 through Oct. 27 are "war room notes" from the government team charged with overseeing the health care law rollout. They don't provide any hard enrollment figures, which officials have promised to release later this month. But they do suggest the administration likely fell well short of its 500,000 enrollment target in the first month, possibly reaching fewer than one tenth of that goal.
Here are some highlights from the document trove:
CHAOS, CONFUSION BEHIND THE SCENES: 'TIGER TEAM' RESPONDS
From the moment HealthCare.gov went live, there were problems across the board, not just limited to logging in or creating an account. There were widespread reports of insurers' plans not showing up in the marketplace, or showing up with the wrong pricing or details. Many applicants (90 percent) who managed to get into the system couldn't pass residency tests to determine Medicaid eligibility. Meanwhile, agents and brokers couldn't access their portal, while regional account officers and caseworkers were "unavailable."
A Critical Incident Response Team (CIRT), also known as the "Tiger Team," composed of members of each division involved with the rollout, convened immediately. They began meeting daily at 8 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. until Oct. 15. The group stopped meeting regularly after that point, but "continue to discuss urgent topics."
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