Staff Writer
The
Affordable Care Act was signed into law in 2010, a step taken to reform
American health care and insurance. The bill’s major provisions includes
prohibiting insurers from denying patients with pre-existing conditions, giving
federal subsidies on insurance to low-income individuals, and reforming the
current Medicaid and Medicare systems that function as American social
insurance.
The
passing of the bill was a huge step forward in health care reform, but so far,
that has been the only positive. The bill itself has been met with much
controversy, which led to a federal shutdown due to a Republican unwillingness
to fund the bill. Eventually the shutdown was ended and the bill branded as “Obamacare”
was able to move forward by starting online open enrollment for the system’s
benefits on October 1. However, the open enrollment website, healthcare.gov,
experienced critical traffic overflow errors, further hindering the bill’s progress.
The
website’s servers were caught off guard by the large volume of traffic, which
caused the website to freeze and crash upon entering the data needed to sign
up. This led to thousands of people being left unable to sign up. When the dust
settled on the morning of October 2, a total of six people were able to sign up
on the website, a farfetched number considering the government expects 7
million to sign on in 2014.
Due
to these unforeseen circumstances, the website has been set offline until further
notice. Even though applying online is for the time being not possible, there
are alternative methods for applying, such as by phone, in person, or by mail.
With
benefits starting January 1 and many people still left unable to sign on, the
overseers of the bill will have a lot of catching up to do.
