Via Politico:
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/11/darrell-issa-obamacare-notes-99394.html#ixzz2kErzjKKSA slew of newly released notes documenting Obamacare’s first month fill in more of the blanks of how the troubled launch unfolded but don’t reveal any enrollment numbers.
During the first few days following the federal exchange site’s Oct. 1 launch, the Obama administration publicly blamed the HealthCare.gov glitches on high website traffic. But the 175 pages of notes from the Obamacare “war room” — released Tuesday by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee — contain little to no mention of higher-than-expected volume.
Instead, notes from the first day indicate that there were problems with verifying shoppers’ identities and whether they were eligible for insurance subsidies, with some receiving incorrect determinations. The system was also denying Medicaid and CHIP enrollment to 90 percent of applicants based on their state residency, a problem officials had tried to fix at first but hadn’t initially succeeded at.
There were also problems on the ground. Licensed agents and brokers were struggling to access the website, and regional account officers and caseworkers were “unavailable.”
On the morning of Oct. 1, possibly 4,000-6,000 applications had “pinged” the system, according to the documents. By Oct. 23, 7,999 paper applications for individuals had been mailed in, along with 1,400 SHOP applications and 42 appeals, according to the documents. And according to an Oct. 25 memo, 3,400 applications had been submitted, although it’s unclear whether that means they had been completed.
More at link.
The expected bias, but not seen this reported yet.
