Dive Brief:
- Roughly 100,000 people signed up for health insurance through the federal Healthcare.gov site last month, about four times as many as those signing up in October, but far below its initial enrollment projections.
- The Obama administration says that it has met its November 30 deadline for fixing the Healthcare.gov site's problems, and that it is now working correctly for most users.
- That being said, government and contract programmers are still working to fix some remaining glitches with the site, including problems with transmitting data to insurers on the site's back end.
Dive Insight:
It's hardly a surprise that a national site which could only manage 1,100 users at a time wouldn't keep pace with the government's hopes and expectations. But now, with the site capable of handling 50,000 users at a time, there will be no excuse for continued slow enrollment. In other words, while the administration does have until March 31 to hit enrollment targets, it will not bode well if enrollment doesn't continue to climb rapidly during December. Those contractors working on the site had best be on top of their game.