Delaware residents and millions around the nation flooded the computers of the health insurance exchanges on Day 3 of open enrollment.
Delaware has decided to add two multi-state plans to the 19 that it already offers under the Affordable Care Act.
Delaware’s Secretary of Health and Social Services Rita Landgraf says that 4-thousand paper forms have been ordered to meet demand.
But those will only be used by higher-income buyers who earn too much to quality for a federal subsidy.
Landgraf says she hopes to have more than 70 guides and navigators in place.
She notes the first enrollment deadline is December 15th which gives people time to sign up for the plans.
Some states have opted to use their own website.
But Delaware decided to go with the federal servers, which means that the state does not yet have access to information about Delawareans who are enrolling.
Maryland
ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) - The executive director of the Maryland Health Benefit Exchange says the state's online marketplace for health insurance has been improved after days of delays due to a deluge of visitors.
Becca Pearce, the director, said Thursday that the exchange's information technology vendors found the cause of an unexpected bottleneck in creating accounts on the website overnight, and steps were taken to improve performance.
Pearce also says more than 1,000 users created new accounts after the improvements were made to Maryland Health Connection, the name of the website.
On Thursday, users have continued to create accounts, determine eligibility and compare and chose plans.
Matt Celantano with Health Care for All was involved with developing the exchanges. He said, "We expected there to be glitches but it's going to work out in the end." Celantano added, "The thing we need to continue to remember is that you do not get coverage even today (not) until january 1st. And there is time. So we encourage consumers, families, folks to shop around for what is the best possible option for individuals and families."
To perform routine maintenance the website will be unavailable from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. daily through the month of October.However, critics of the Affordable Care Act have jumped on the technical problems surrounding the launch of the health insurance exchanges.
Celantano objects strongly to those criticisms.
It is scary that Washington wants to play politics with a law that has been passed by congress, affirmed by the supreme court and they using this as a talking point. the fact is Obamacare or the Affordable Care Act -- what ever you want to talk about -- is moving forward and we're seeing ridiculously crazy amounts of people across the country who are trying to get enrolled. And that is what is important."
