President Obama on Tuesday embarked on the difficult task of persuading Americans to reconsider his landmark health-care law after its botched launch, imploring people to sign up as part of a major push to publicize the benefits of the Affordable Care Act.
Republicans immediately lampooned the effort — coming more than three years after passage of the law and two months after its disastrous rollout — and conservative activists vowed to wage a counterassault publicizing the law’s downsides.
Graphic
The federal health-care exchange is falling short of expectations
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But Obama and his Democratic allies expressed confidence that they were finally turning the corner after severe technical issues hobbled HealthCare.gov, the government Web site where Americans can enroll in health insurance.
“Our poor execution in the first couple months on the Web site clouded the fact that there are a whole bunch of people who stand to benefit,” Obama said at a White House event, flanked by people who said they had benefited from the law. “Now that the Web site’s working for the vast majority of people, we need to make sure that folks refocus on what’s at stake here, which is the capacity for you or your families to be able to have the security of decent health insurance at a reasonable cost.”
The statement marked the start of a new effort by the White House to shine attention on the law. On Sunday, the administration announced that the Web site was finally working well for the “vast majority” of users, although significant bugs remained. The administration had planned a huge push after the law launched on Oct. 1, but those plans were tabled when the site — where Americans could choose among insurance plans in federal marketplaces — barely functioned.
Now, Democratic lawmakers plan to join with the White House in highlighting the benefits of the law, as do a series of outside groups — all with the knowledge that time is short.
Americans must sign up by Dec. 23 to receive coverage that takes effect Jan. 1, and Obama and his team plan to hold daily events highlighting the law until then. The law’s success depends on adding millions of relatively healthy Americans to the insurance rolls — many of whom may have been turned off by the early problems.
Administration officials pointed to traffic on HealthCare.gov this week as evidence that the site is working much better. On Tuesday, Julie Bataille, communications director for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said that 1.38 million people had visited the Web site from Monday through noon Tuesday.
Bataille said that 16,000 people on Monday were placed in an online queue, a new feature of the system that notifies them if the site is too crowded and sends them an e-mail inviting them to try again when it is less clogged.
The queuing began when the site had about 15,000 fewer users than the administration’s target capacity of 50,000. About 60 percent of the people who were sent to the queue returned to the site later in the day, she said.
Still, it was clear that bugs remained in the system. The National Association of Health Underwriters, which represents more than 100,000 licensed health-insurance agents and brokers, on Tuesday asked the Obama to fix the Web site’s “back end” technical obstacles.
Republicans immediately lampooned the effort — coming more than three years after passage of the law and two months after its disastrous rollout — and conservative activists vowed to wage a counterassault publicizing the law’s downsides.
Graphic
The federal health-care exchange is falling short of expectations
We’ve compiled questions and answers around the topics discussed most, so you can browse what others have asked and get answers of your own. Sarah Kliff Is HealthCare.gov working for you? We want to know!
Sarah Kliff and Lena H. Sun Three states are in. Three states are out. And a lot more are still deciding.
Sandhya Somashekhar, Amy Goldstein, Sarah Kliff and Lena H. Sun Everything you need to know about the rollout of the new health insurance marketplace.
LATEST UPDATES | What you need to know about the new health-care law as it begins to take effect.But Obama and his Democratic allies expressed confidence that they were finally turning the corner after severe technical issues hobbled HealthCare.gov, the government Web site where Americans can enroll in health insurance.
“Our poor execution in the first couple months on the Web site clouded the fact that there are a whole bunch of people who stand to benefit,” Obama said at a White House event, flanked by people who said they had benefited from the law. “Now that the Web site’s working for the vast majority of people, we need to make sure that folks refocus on what’s at stake here, which is the capacity for you or your families to be able to have the security of decent health insurance at a reasonable cost.”
The statement marked the start of a new effort by the White House to shine attention on the law. On Sunday, the administration announced that the Web site was finally working well for the “vast majority” of users, although significant bugs remained. The administration had planned a huge push after the law launched on Oct. 1, but those plans were tabled when the site — where Americans could choose among insurance plans in federal marketplaces — barely functioned.
Now, Democratic lawmakers plan to join with the White House in highlighting the benefits of the law, as do a series of outside groups — all with the knowledge that time is short.
Americans must sign up by Dec. 23 to receive coverage that takes effect Jan. 1, and Obama and his team plan to hold daily events highlighting the law until then. The law’s success depends on adding millions of relatively healthy Americans to the insurance rolls — many of whom may have been turned off by the early problems.
Administration officials pointed to traffic on HealthCare.gov this week as evidence that the site is working much better. On Tuesday, Julie Bataille, communications director for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said that 1.38 million people had visited the Web site from Monday through noon Tuesday.
Bataille said that 16,000 people on Monday were placed in an online queue, a new feature of the system that notifies them if the site is too crowded and sends them an e-mail inviting them to try again when it is less clogged.
The queuing began when the site had about 15,000 fewer users than the administration’s target capacity of 50,000. About 60 percent of the people who were sent to the queue returned to the site later in the day, she said.
Still, it was clear that bugs remained in the system. The National Association of Health Underwriters, which represents more than 100,000 licensed health-insurance agents and brokers, on Tuesday asked the Obama to fix the Web site’s “back end” technical obstacles.