Almost Nothing About Obamacare’s Federal Exchange System Works

Almost nothing about Obamacare’s
federal exchange system is working. It’s almost impressive how
comprehensive the federal system’s technical failures are. Just
about every part of the system that has been reported on seems to
have problems, many of which are quite serious.

• The account creation system necessary to even start the process
  of using the exchanges basically didn’t work at all when the site
  launched. Administrators appear to have improved this functionality
  since launch, but Jeff Zients, who is overseeing the
  troubleshooting project,
  says it’s still not working for about 10 percent of users.
• The vast majority of people who can create accounts still can’t
  complete the enrollment process. According to Zients, only about 30
  percent of users are able to get through the system.
• Anyone who successfully logs in gets to the point of shopping
  for specific plans on the exchanges may see prices displayed
  incorrectly, as the system has
  had problems
  calculating eligibility for public subsidies for
  insurance.(Subsidy calculation has also
  proven
  difficult for
  several state-run exchanges.) 
• Anyone who decides to browse for plans without logging in first
  is also
  liable to see incorrect prices. The “shop and browse” feature
  installed to mitigate problems caused by the broken account system
  often displays the wrong prices, because it lumps together premiums
  for anyone who is 49 and under, and anyone who is 50 or older.
  Everyone under 50 is provided prices for a 27-year-old, even though
  prices for people in their 40s might be quite a bit higher.
• Several exchanges are having
  trouble accurately
  displaying provider and network information for the plans on
  offer. This is not a big problem for the federal exchanges yet
  because they are still so dysfunctional, but if the state-run
  exchanges are any indication, it could eventually create headaches
  for people who want to know which doctors and hospitals are
  attached to which plans. 
• Even with just a trickle of individuals making it all the way
  through the process, insurers are
  not getting correct enrollment information from the exchanges.
  As a result, many are reviewing applications manually. If larger
  numbers of applications ever make it through the system, that won’t
  be sustainable. And there may be longer term problems as well: If
  enrollment data is transmitted incorrectly, people could eventually
  find out they didn’t enroll in the plan they selected, or didn’t
  actually enroll at all.
• The small business exchanges aren’t fully up and running
  either. Enrollment in those exchanges, already delayed once, was
  delayed again, the administration
  announced this week.
• The federal exchanges were supposed to seamlessly interface
  with multiple state Medicaid programs, but that functionality,
  originally delayed until November 1, was
  also further delayed last week. And at this point, federal
  officials won’t say when they expect that functionality will be
  complete.
• Security testing for the federal exchange system was never
  completed. An
  internal memo warned that too little testing “exposed a level
  of uncertainty that can be deemed as a high risk.” (The temporary
  security authorization under which the site is operating also
  
  appears to violate the administration’s own web security
  guidelines.)
• The Spanish language version of the website has been
  delayed indefinitely.
• The “data hub” that routes information between multiple
  databases has gone
  down on
  multiple occasions due to hosting facility outages.

It’s a near-total failure. All the major segments of the
system—the user end, the insurer end, the data-routing in the
middle, the plan information on display, the connections with
state-run legacy systems—are either problem-plagued or broken
entirely.