The Obama administration said Monday that users who log onto the federal Obamacare website by the end of the week will find a vastly improved portal that works for the lion’s share of users, but it warned that glitches still could crop up.
Officials at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services are sticking by their position that the website will work for the “vast majority” of users by the start of December, after capacity issues and software flaws resulted in a disastrous rollout on Oct. 1 and the weeks that followed.
“The system will not work perfectly on December 1, but it will operate much better than it did in October,” CMS spokeswoman Julie Bataille said.
At the same time, the agency acknowledged that parts of the website encountered a one-hour outage Monday morning.
Officials said they are adding capacity to the website and will institute in coming weeks a consumer-friendly queuing system for occasions that the site is overrun with users.
Analysts and officials expect a tide of enrollees to sign up in the first few weeks of December, since the website will be working better and people will want to lock in coverage in time for the new year after reviewing their options.
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Last week, the Obama administration said consumers now have until Dec. 23, instead of Dec. 15, to sign up for coverage and have it by Jan. 1.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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