More Americans Use Health Care Website, Phone, on Deadline
Wednesday, December 25 2013, 12:20 PM EST
More Americans Use Health Care Website, Phone, on Deadline
CHICAGO (AP) -- The White House says traffic on the health care website https://www.healthcare.gov/ was high on Tuesday, but not as heavy as Monday -- when there were 2 million visits. That was the highest one-day total since the website went into operation, when it was plagued with problems.
Officials say error rates have been lower than one in 200, and pages loaded quickly, in less than a half-second.
Monday was supposed to be the last day for people to sign up for health care coverage in order to be covered on the first of the year. But the deadline was extended until Tuesday.
For a multitude of reasons -- including technical difficulties with the site or trouble understanding the instructions -- thousands of people have been seeking telephone help, and wound up waiting on hold today at the government's call center.
A Utah man said he and his wife, both students, had been trying for weeks to complete their application on the federal site, but were thwarted by computer error messages each time. Today, they reached a call center counselor who succeeded in enrolling them. The 'silver' plan they chose will cost them $241 a month, after a tax credit.
Officials say more than 110,000 people had called the government's help line by this afternoon, with wait times averaging 27 minutes.
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