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HealthCare.gov watch: Roadblocks cleared but journey is long, tortuous



Checking in on HealthCare.gov, after the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said it was able to unclog data pipes following a complete shutdown over the weekend of Obamacare’s primary web site…..

First the good news: We were able to finally get past the hang-up that stopped our journey through the site in its tracks for several weeks; that is, logging on and getting a blank screen. Now, at last, the software takes us beyond that. The bad news: The journey from logging on to completing the application is tortuous. We went through several false starts, had to fill out the application several times — apparently the dozens of buttons that said “save and continue” every time we filled out a tidbit of information didn’t really mean that whole part about saving your information — and ran into a number of confusing commands.

Eventually, though, after stalling out roughly half a dozen times, we were able to get to the point where we completed our application. Since we didn’t really want to be processed, we didn’t sign on the dotted line.

Here’s what we experienced:

–The first thing we did after logging on was fill out an ID check. Then it got stuck. At first, we figured this was the limit of CMS’s progress but we tried logging off and logging on again. The web site magically took us to the next step. Go figure.

–Using the example of a three-member household with parents in their 50s and one child in her early 20s, we entered the particulars on each. For some reason, the web site wanted duplicate information on two members of the household, and then it listed them as additional members of the family.

When it seemed we were going to insure a family of five instead of three, we decided to back out and try to edit out the duplicate information. The software got stuck again and so we logged off. As we logged in again, all the information we entered was lost. We tried it all over again but ended up giving the duplicate information — again. We backed out again, and lost the information — again. –It seemed the trouble we had centered around seeking subsidies. We decided to skip that part and found that the software liked it much better. It didn’t ask for the duplicate information but still got stuck a couple of times. One of the more curious things was that it initially required Social Security numbers as part of the basic information, but then later asked if they could use them to see whether we could get financial assistance — even though we checked off the box that said we didn’t want it.

–We hit a few more hangups where the software would stall out, forcing us to log out and start over again. Once we got close to completing the application, we hit a strange snag. It asked the nature of the relationship of the child to one of the parents, but wouldn’t let us answer. The dropdown menu wouldn’t open and there was one of those timers that seemed to indicate eventually that it would let us answer.

It never did, and so we logged out and logged back in. All the information was lost, again, and so we gave it one last college try. We got to the same point where it asked for the relationship of the child to one of the parents, and the dropdown menu wouldn’t engage. We just decided to skip that, hit the “save and continue” button and voila…..we were at the page that said our application is complete.

Stay tuned. We could say that it can’t get any worse, but we already know that’s not really true.

Follow Russ Britt on Twitter@russbrittmktw

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