Lapses in coordination among countries and companies trying to find Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 led to three days of searches in an area hundreds of miles from where investigators now believe the plane is likely to have gone down, people familiar with the matter said.
The search area shifted abruptly on Friday after authorities more fully merged two investigative strands by international teams of experts that had largely been...
Source: Top Stories - Google News - http://ift.tt/O9QlVs
Figures like total enrollment are clues to Obamacare's early performance. But they hint at a larger challenge: how to keep costs contained so more Americans can afford insurance.
As the sign-up deadline for Obamacare arrives, the White House says the total of more than 6 million enrollees shows the law is succeeding after a rocky start. Many critics say the opposite.
What you may not have heard in all the din is that the law’s success or failure isn’t easily reducible to a statistic like total enrollees as of March 31.
It won’t even be captured by tallying how many of the enrollees are young people – a factor often cited as vital because the age mix will affect costs of insurance over time.
Such numbers are important, but just part of the picture.
Perhaps the best way of gauging the Affordable Care Act’s success will be in the answers to three broad questions:
1. Is the share of Americans who are uninsured falling considerably?
2. Does the pricing of insurance remain affordable for people who shop on the Obamacare marketplaces (also called exchanges)?
3. Do people feel positively about the health care they end up getting under the law?
Those questions don’t yet have clear answers, but health policy expert Drew Altman says questions including these are the right metrics to be watching.
“The current focus on national enrollment numbers and signups by young adults doesn’t tell us a great deal about the answers to these questions,” writes Mr. Altman, who is president of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit research group.
So far, the trend lines on those three questions could be summarized as follows:
• On Obamacare’s central stated goal of reducing the number of uninsured Americans, the law is having an impact but maybe not as fast as hoped. This includes both people newly insured via Medicaid and through sign-ups on the Obamacare exchanges.
• Prices on the exchanges are a mix of affordable and steep – depending in part on the size of subsidies that the law provides based on income and family size. (See “How much will enrolling cost me?”) Some forecasters see insurance premiums rising in 2015. The costlier it gets, the greater the risk that people won’t follow the Obama slogan of “get covered.” Because pricing and enrollment trends vary by locale, the law may show success in some states and not in others.
• On the third question, how well Obamacare serves consumers, it’s too early to have data from exchange users. What can be said is that Americans generally give their health-care system strong marks, but a good many fret that the quality of care will go down under the Affordable Care Act.
Some 45 percent of Americans, in a Kaiser poll a year ago, saw the reform law making the quality of US health care worse, while 24 percent thought quality would improve under the law. The exchanges offer generally strong insurance coverage, but a common consumer worry is that the choice of doctors is narrowing.
The thread that runs through this all is that the law’s aim – to extend the umbrella of insurance coverage over millions more Americans – is hard to achieve unless costs can also be tamed. Otherwise, people are put in an untenable situation of being asked to buy something they can’t afford, or to help pay for something as taxpayers that’s running out of control.
Supporters of Obamacare point to a slowdown in medical inflation in recent years as a promising sign that upward cost pressure can be contained, and they credit the law as part of the reason. But many health experts say the Affordable Care Act doesn’t do enough to curb the cycle of rising prices.
“The ACA did little to limit the cost increases [that] providers, drug companies and durable medical equipment vendors pass through,” Brett Heineman, an actuary specializing in health care, said last fall in The Actuary magazine. “This will come to a head sometime between 2015 and 2017.”
Although the effects of Obamacare could play out over several years, this doesn’t mean the initial enrollment numbers are meaningless. They’re a current barometer of popular response.
The milestone of 6 million enrollees on the exchanges, which the Obama administration announced a few days before the March 31 sign-up deadline, represents a significant comeback after last fall's botched launch of HealthCare.gov.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) predicted at first that 2014 enrollment on the exchanges would reach 7 million, but then scaled its forecast back to 6 million after the exchanges’ troubled launch.
Now, as the tally exceeds 6 million, it’s helpful to be a bit cautious about the numbers. Some insurance experts warn that the figures will eventually get adjusted downward for people who fail to pay premiums or were double-counted because of the software problems.
And don’t assume that all the enrollees are people who were previously uninsured. The total includes lots of people who had individual coverage before and have been drawn into the new marketplaces.
One survey by the consulting firm McKinsey found in February that only about 1 in 4 enrollees came from the ranks of the uninsured. If true, that ratio undershoots the CBO estimate that about two-thirds of enrollees would have no prior insurance.
Still, the law appears to be reducing the number of uninsured Americans through its expansion of Medicaid and the launch of the exchanges.
Gallup polling early this year found that 15.9 percent of Americans say they’re uninsured, down from 18 percent in the middle of last year. But it's hard to know how much the poll results are due to Obamacare versus other factors like falling unemployment. Moreover, the share who are uninsured should fall further still if the law were to match the CBO forecast of 13 million people becoming newly covered in 2014.
To be sure, the share of enrollees who are young is important to Obamacare’s success. That’s because insurers want a customer pool that includes plenty of low-cost (often young) people alongside those who use more medical services.
In recent months, about 1 in 4 enrollees has been from the under-35 crowd, lower than the 40 percent share the Obama administration was hoping for. But not all young people are cheap to insure. The age mix is really a just a proxy for a more complicated issue: As insurance companies prepare to set their premiums for next year, their decisions will be influenced by whether their 2014 pool of customers is costing more than expected.
Critics of Obamacare argue that the law could flame out in a so-called death spiral, as exchanges appeal disproportionately to less-healthy people, driving up the cost of insurance and making it less likely that more-healthy potential customers also sign up.
So stay tuned for news about those 2015 premiums. Some insurance experts warn of double-digit rate hikes within the state marketplaces. Others expect more-modest changes in premiums, in part because insurers may be focused on attracting customers during the law’s early phase.
Source: Top Stories - Google News - http://ift.tt/1htN3b4
Today is the big Obamacare deadline (except for the extension the White House announced last week), and naturally the White House PR machine is still going strong. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius did an interview Monday with an Oklahoma local news station about the health care law that took an unexpectedly awkward turn.
The reporter pointed out that a clear majority of Oklahomans are not fans of Obamacare, saying, “Now that’s going to be––still continue to be––a tough sell, but we’ll see how that plays out over the coming months.”
He paused for a bit to let Sebelius respond, but she didn’t. At first, it seemed like Sebelius just hadn’t heard him, but as they ended the segment, Sebelius made it clear she had heard him. So…
A searcher on an Australian Navy ship on Monday. Australia’s prime minister said he was not considering ending Australian participation in the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.Credit Australian Defense Force, via Reuters
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Australia and Malaysia led an intensified multinational search on Monday for the remains of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 in the southern Indian Ocean and prepared to deploy a submersible device to detect any pings from the aircraft’s flight data recorders, or black boxes, only days before their batteries are expected to die.
But in contending with a revised search area the size of Poland, there was no immediate indication the searchers were any closer to finding traces of the aircraft or its 239 passengers and crew members. The plane has now been missing for more than three weeks.
Although frustrations and costs have grown, Malaysian and Australian officials asserted they would keep searching indefinitely.
Malaysia has been under increasing pressure, particularly from relatives of Chinese passengers on the March 8 f Kuala Lumpur-to-Beijing flight, to produce evidence of the plane̢۪s fate. Most of the passengers were Chinese.
“We understand that it has been a difficult time for all the families, and we appreciate that many families want to see physical evidence before they will accept that MH370 ended in the south Indian Ocean,†Hishammuddin Hussein, Malaysia’s defense minister, said at a news conference here.
The Malaysian defense minister, Hishammuddin Hussein, and Prime Minister Tony Abbott of Australia said there is no time limit on the investigation of missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.
“We will continue with all our efforts to find MH370,†he said. “This is a promise that Malaysia intends to keep.â€
Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Tony Abbott of Australia, whose country has been coordinating the search in the Indian Ocean, said that he was not considering ending Australian participation.
“We can keep searching for quite some time to come,†he said.
Ten planes and 11 ships were ordered to scour the latest search area, about 1,100 miles west of Perth, Australia. The Australian defense minister, David Johnston, said about 100 air personnel and 1,000 sailors were in the zone.
Additional ships were en route, expected to arrive within days, including an Australian naval vessel, the Ocean Shield, equipped to detect the pings of the plane̢۪s data and cockpit voice recorders, according to the Australian Maritime Safety Authority, the government agency coordinating the search.
Capt. Mark Matthews, a supervisor of a team from the United States Navy that is involved in the search, said the effectiveness of the detection equipment would depend on “how effective we are at reducing that search area.â€
The sequence of events known by the authorities, in local times.
Mar. 8, 2014 00:41 AM
A Boeing 777-200 operated by Malaysia Airlines leaves Kuala Lumpur bound for Beijing with 227 passengers, of which two-thirds are Chinese, and a Malaysian crew of 12.
Mar. 8, 2014 01:07 AM
The airplane's Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System, or Acars, which transmits data about the plane's performance, sends a transmission. It is not due to transmit again for a half-hour.
Mar. 8, 2014 01:19 AM
The cockpit crew acknowledges a message from ground control, saying, "Good night Malaysian three seven zero." No further voice messages are received from the plane.
Mar. 8, 2014 01:21 AM
Two minutes after the last voice transmission, the plane's transponder, which signals its identity, altitude and speed to other aircraft and to monitors on the ground, is shut off or fails.
Mar. 8, 2014 01:37 AM
The Acars system fails to send its scheduled signal, indicating that it has been shut off or has failed sometime in the past half-hour.
Mar. 8, 2014 02:15 AM
An unidentified plane flying westward is detected by military radar. It ascends to 45,000 feet, above the approved limit for a Boeing 777, then descends unevenly to 23,000 feet and eventually flies out over the Indian Ocean. Investigators later conclude that it was Flight 370. It was last plotted 200 miles northwest of Panang.
Mar. 8, 2014 06:30 AM
By now Flight 370 was scheduled to have landed in Beijing.
Mar. 8, 2014 07:24 AM
Malaysia Airlines announces that it has lost contact with the aircraft.
Mar. 8, 2014 08:11 AM
The last complete signal is received from an automated satellite system on the plane, suggesting that it was still intact and flying. The Malaysian authorities say the jet had enough fuel to keep flying for perhaps a half-hour after this.
Mar. 8, 2014 08:19 AM
Inmarsat, a satellite communications company, says an incomplete signal representing a “partial handshake" may have been received.
Further analysis of satellite data confirms that the jet went down in the southern Indian Ocean.
Mar. 15, 2014 00:00 AM
The Malaysian authorities say the investigation has become a criminal matter because the jet appears to have been deliberately diverted. The plane's first turn off course, to the west, was executed using an onboard computer, probably programmed by someone with knowledge of aircraft systems.
The authorities say two passengers were Iranians who boarded using stolen European passports, but no links to terrorist groups are found.
Captain Matthews said the so-called pinger locator, towed behind the ship, was a batwing-shaped device with a microphone that could pick up signals from Flight 370̢۪s data recorders.
The submersible can be deployed to map a debris field on the ocean floor using sonar, and then to use a camera to provide what Captain Matthews called “a full mosaic†of the debris field.
But the ping detector̢۪s utility, in the absence of more specific information about the location of the wreckage, is doubtful. The device will be towed at an average speed of about three miles per hour, Captain Matthews said, and the submersible moves roughly three and a half miles per hour.
“Nothing is fast in underwater search,†Captain Matthews said.
Searchers say there is no time to waste: The pinger locator will be ineffective once the batteries powering the flight data recorders die, which is expected to happen next week.
Mr. Hishammuddin said the Malaysian prime minister, Najib Razak, would travel to Pearce Air Force Base in Australia on Wednesday to thank the multinational force participating in the search and to view the efforts.
Australia announced on Friday that it had moved the search area nearly 700 miles to the northeast of an area it had been searching for about a week.Full Graphic »
Since Friday, when the search zone was shifted from an area about 700 miles south, aircraft have made daily sightings of floating objects. On closer inspection by crews on the ships, none of the items have been linked to the missing plane, a Boeing 777-200.
Two planes flying over the zone on Sunday spotted what Mr. Hishammuddin called “potential objects.†A ship in the area was sent to the spot on Monday to retrieve them, he said.
As a measure of how difficult it has been for spotters on the planes to classify objects in the ocean, crews on two ships pulled several objects from the rough waters on Saturday, raising hopes that the first physical evidence of the airliner had been found. But the items turned out to be “fishing equipment and other flotsam,†the Maritime Safety Authority said in a statement.
In Malaysia, more than two dozen relatives of Chinese passengers on Flight 370 arrived from China on Sunday to press Malaysian officials for more information about the investigation.
Mr. Hishammuddin reaffirmed on Monday that the Malaysian government intended to host the families at a briefing with high-level officials, and said the meeting would be broadcast to Beijing for relatives of passengers there.
The Malaysian government has endured withering criticism from the relatives and friends of Chinese passengers, both in Malaysia and in China, who have accused officials of withholding information about the disappearance of the plane and not doing enough to find it.
The group that arrived Sunday protested at a hotel near Kuala Lumpur and demanded an apology from the Malaysian government for declaring last week that the plane had ended its flight in the southern Indian Ocean, saying there was insufficient evidence to support that conclusion.
Kirk Semple reported from Kuala Lumpur, and Michelle Innis from Sydney, Australia. Nicola Clark contributed reporting from Paris.
Julissa Esparza, 2, sleeps in the arms of her grandfather Leobardo Salazar, 58, as they wait in line at a health insurance enrollment event in Cudahy, California March 27, 2014.
Credit: Reuters/Lucy Nicholson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The federal website for U.S. consumers to enroll in private health insurance under Obamacare ran into problems twice on Monday because of a surge of people trying to access the site hours before a midnight deadline to sign up for coverage.
Technical issues that barred access to HealthCare.gov for several hours throughout the day underscored the frantic last-minute pace of an enrollment process that could determine the ultimate success or failure of the healthcare law that represents President Barack Obama's domestic policy achievement.
More than 6 million people had signed up for private health coverage through the new Obamacare insurance markets by last week, surpassing a target set after a disastrous October rollout called the enrollment process into question. With daily volumes continuing to surge, analysts believe the final tally could approach or even exceed an original goal of 7 million.
"We admittedly had just a terrible start because the website wasn't working, and despite losing effectively two months, we are going to be reasonably close to that original projection," Obama said in a CBS Evening News interview that was taped last week and broadcast on Monday.
A successful enrollment would give an important political boost to the administration and its Democratic allies, who are locked in an election year battle with Republicans over the future of Obamacare.
"No one expected us to come back from the brink," White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters before the broadcast. "But we have. And I think that merits noting in your reports."
Analysts say the total enrollment is less important than the number of healthy policyholders in the marketplaces, which have probably attracted large numbers of older people and consumers with pre-existing medical conditions, who are costlier to insure. Obama told CBS that young people, who are generally healthy, were signing up in larger numbers late in the enrollment period, as expected.
LAST-MINUTE RUSH
In Houston on Monday, prospective enrollees again lined the sidewalks outside special city offices in hopes of obtaining private insurance coverage that comes with federal subsidies for low-income people.
"It's madness. But it's good madness," said Tiffany Hogue, statewide healthcare campaign coordinator for the nonprofit Texas Organizing Project, which is helping with the 11th-hour enrollment drive in the state.
People also crowded health centers across Florida as navigators and others trained to assist with online enrollment struggled with HealthCare.gov's access problems. Compounding the website's challenges were long waits at a federal call center set up as an alternative route to coverage, according to health center officials.
"It's been very, very, very busy. But the website issues haven't been bad, and people realize they've waited until the last minute," said Andrew Behrman, chief executive officer of the Florida Association of Community Health Centers, which represents facilities in nearly 350 locations.
"What can I tell you? It's like a last-minute sale," he added.
Texas and Florida, whose political leaders reject Obamacare, have the biggest uninsured populations among the 36 states served by HealthCare.gov. The remaining 14 states, including California and New York, have set up their own insurance marketplaces.
VIRTUAL WAITING ROOM
HealthCare.gov's performance on the final day of a six-month enrollment period was delayed until 8 a.m. EDT after a government tech team noticed a software bug and extended an overnight maintenance schedule to deal with the problem.
A few hours later, new users logging on to the federal website that serves consumers in 36 states were suddenly unable to create accounts and begin the enrollment process as volume reached what administration officials called record levels. By early afternoon, officials reported the issue resolved.
"Record traffic continues before the midnight ET deadline. As of 2 p.m., HealthCare.gov had more than 1.6 million visits. As of 4 p.m., there were more than 840,000 calls to the call center," said Joanne Peters, spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
She said the day's high volumes triggered the system's virtual waiting room, a holding page where people can wait to be let into the website.
The call center volume shattered the previous record of 646,000 for Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services call centers, which occurred on Medicare Part D's last day to enroll on May 15, 2006.
As enrollment has gathered pace, opinion polls have shown public opinion on Obamacare sharply split, with the law slowly gaining favor. A new ABC News/Washington Post poll on Monday said 49 percent of Americans now support the law, up from 40 percent in November. The latest data has a 3.5 percentage-point margin of error.
Republicans continued to pour scorn on Obamacare as a mistake that would harm consumers and small businesses.
"Republicans will continue to work to repeal this law," House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner said in statement.
"We're achieving something today that I know has our critics gnashing their teeth," Carney, the White House spokesman, said of the law's political opponents. "It leaves them with the need to go back to the drawing board when it comes to other means of trying to attack."
The system's data services hub, which connects HealthCare.gov to federal agencies, remained fully operational, allowing people already in the system to complete their enrollment, she said.
The delays occurred as healthcare reform faced a crucial test to see how many people sign up for new insurance under the Obamacare marketplaces.
Americans have until midnight on Monday to obtain health insurance under Obama's Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act or face fines. The administration has softened the deadline to accommodate those who attempt to apply for coverage by Monday night but run into technology issues.
The administration said the website "has handled record consumer demand well. Over the weekend, the site saw 2 million visits," the government said, and more than 8.7 million visits during the past week.
HealthCare.gov's consumer-facing technology has worked more or less smoothly since December following an emergency overhaul ordered by the White House. However, there are still some parts of the back-end systems that remain unbuilt.
The daughter of MH370's pilot has accused a British tabloid of "making up" an article in which the paper quoted her saying her father was unstable before the flight, a report said on Monday, AFP reported. The Daily Mail, whose coverage of the three-week-long missing-plane crisis has been questioned before, said in a report Sunday that family members described captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, 53, as "disturbed". But Aishah Zaharie, the captain's daughter, said the Daily Mail report was bogus, as per AFP
9:30 pm: ADV Ocean Shield departed for MH370 search area
ADV Ocean Shield has departed for MH370 search area. Transit expected to take several days, AMSA News reported.
9:00 pm: Search operations over for today
Search operations have concluded for today. All aircraft returning, nothing significant to report. Search will resume tomorrow, AMSA News reported.
8:15 pm Accept reality of plane crash, Chinese daily tells passengers kin
China should accept the reality that the missing Malaysian jet had crashed in the Indian Ocean and prepare for funerals, a commentary in state media said on Monday amid protests and accusations by anguished relatives who insist their loved ones could still be alive, PTI reported.
6:00 pm: No time limit for plane search, says Australian PM
There is no time limit on resolving the "extraordinary mystery" of the missing Malaysian jet, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said, even as the latest leads on possible plane debris turned out to be false alarms, PTI reported. Bad weather conditions today forced the Australia-led search team to suspend operations for locating the debris of the missing flight MH370 in the Indian Ocean. The search had been intensified today with 10 aircraft and 10 ships combing 254,000 sq km area. Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) said the orange objects spotted by a plane have turned out to be nothing more than fishing equipment, as per PTI reports.
The Malaysian Guided Missile Frigate, KD Lekiu has arrived at HMAS Stirling to receive briefings on missing Flight 370's search operations west of Perth, AMSA News reports.
14: 23 pm: New rules set for airports in Malaysia
In wake of the missing Flight 370, new rules have been set for the Malaysian airports with strict instructions on number of crew members in the cockpit.
Malaysia Airlines (MAS) and Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB) have said the pilot and a co-pilot are now not allowed to be left alone in the cockpit, even when one of them is taking a toilet break, as per PTI reports.
The new rule allows a cabin crew member to be present in the cockpit in the absence of pilot or co-pilot.
14: 08 pm: Objects spotted not related to Malaysian plane
Soon after an Australian aircraft crew spotted four orange objects in the water west of Perth, it ruled out any possibility of them belonging to the missing Malaysian jet.
The crew had spotted four orange items of interest. They immediately took photos and sent them to the coordinators.
13:12 pm: Australian Defence Vessel Ocean Shield to reach search area
Australian Defence Vessel Ocean Shield, which is equipped with ping locator, is being trialled in Cockburn Sound close to Perth in western Australia.
The pinger locator to trace 'black boxes' of Flight 370 will be tested today, said Australian Maritime Safety Authority. Thereafter, the black box locator will be taken to the search area.
11: 15 am: US naval officer calls chances of finding 'black boxes' slim
US Navy Captain Mark Matthews has said that it would be very difficult to locate the black boxes, which have a battery life of 30-40 days, before its battery dies.
He also said that everything now depends on the efforts being made to reduce the search area.
The Australian warship Ocean Shield, which is equipped with a black box detector is sailing from the southwestern Australian city of Perth and is expected to reach soon to the search area.
10: 00 am: HMAS Toowoomba joins search operation
Australia Navy's HMAS Toowoomba has made best speed and has entered the search area for Flight 370 after departing on Saturday afternoon, as per AMSA news.
The Anzac class frigate arrived at its home port of Stirling Naval Base in Rockingham on Saturday after being recalled from other duties to join the search operation of missing Malaysian jet.
9: 45 am: Australian PM Tony Abbott in Perth, says no time limit on hunt
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who visited the Pearce RAAF base in Perth on Monday, said that there is no time limit on the search for the missing Malaysian plane.
He further applauded the efforts of the world involved in the search operation. “It is praiseworthy that for a humanitarian cause many nations have come together and making efforts to resolve this extraordinary mystery.
9: 15 am: Australian PM Tony Abbott to arrive in Perth
Australian Prime Minister Tonny Abott will be arriving at Perth's Pearce Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) base on Sunday.
Tony had yesterday said that retired Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, country's former defence force chief, will lead a new joint agency co-ordination centre (JACC) in Perth to search for the debris of the missing plane.
9: 00 am: One aircraft, eight ships in search area
While one aircraft and eight ships are currently scouring for the missing plane MH370, four more aircraft are now en route to the search area, as per AMSA News.
8: 40 am: Search for Flight 370 resumes
After scouring approximately 252,000 square kilometres on Sunday, the search operation has resumed on Monday in the Indian Ocean.
Yesterday, search activities involved a total of nine aircraft.
The hunt for physical evidence that the Malaysia Airlines jet carrying 239 people crashed more than three weeks ago, as Kuala Lumpur has declared, has so far proved fruitless despite a massive operation involving many countries.
First Published: Monday, March 31, 2014, 09:13
Source: Top Stories - Google News - http://ift.tt/1gVwyG2
Jayne O'Donnell and Aamer Madhani, USA TODAY6:55 p.m. EDT March 31, 2014
Quetta Pipkin, left, of the Medical Foundation of Chattanooga, assists Paige Carlton during an Affordable Care Act health care enrollment event at Cleveland State Community College on March 26, 2014, in Cleveland, Tenn.(Photo: John Rawlston, AP)
Story Highlights
Website issue had been resolved shortly after 1:30 p.m. ET
Message said callers should expect to wait 5 to 7 days to hear from a specialist
White House did not yet have a date of when it would release a final tally of those who signed up via site
SHARE924CONNECTEMAILMORE
With the midnight deadline nearing for uninsured Americans to buy health insurance or face a penalty, the federal online exchange on Monday was flooded with consumers who waited until the last second to shop for plans — and found themselves overwhelmed by a technical glitch that made it difficult for some to even get past the initial step of creating an account.
Just after noon, Department of Health and Human Services spokeswoman Joanne Peters said the tech team monitoring HealthCare.gov identified an issue that prevented new users from logging onto the site and enrolling in a plan.
Shortly after 1:30 p.m., Peters said that the issue had been resolved, but some new users continued to experience difficultly logging in.
Agents, consumers and USA TODAY reporters who tried using the site on Monday were being sent immediately to the virtual waiting room — which Peters said was to be expected given the crush of traffic.
"HealthCare.gov has a lot of visitors right now!" was the message visitors were greeted with in the virtual waiting room. "We need you to wait here so we can make sure there's room for you to have a good experience on our site."
A recording at the federal exchange's call center set up to help consumers said callers should expect to wait five to seven days to hear back from a specialist, but they would still be able to enroll in an insurance plan even though the sign-up deadline would have passed.
Midnight Monday is the deadline for open enrollment and the last chance to avoid a penalty for not purchasing insurance in 2014, which will be due with federal income taxes in April 2015.
Peters said there was a record number of people trying to use the site on Monday — with roughly 125,000 people on the site at the same time at peak of traffic, she said. More than 1.6 million people had visited the site as of 2 p.m. on Monday, and more than 840,000 people had phoned the call center as of late Monday afternoon.
The White House also touted the fact that that there were 2.9 million visits to the website over the weekend, and last week they counted more phone calls from Americans inquiring about signing up for insurance that they saw in all of February.
The entire website was down briefly early Monday, but the White House said it was for extended maintenance to deal with the expected heavy traffic on the last day of open enrollment.
No one questioned whether traffic was heavy, but many insurance agents that struggled with the balky website on Monday said the federal site appeared to have bigger issues.
In Pennsylvania, agent Angie Surra of St. Marys Insurance complained the site was so glitch-plagued "you can't get anything done."
She added that her struggles with HealthCare.gov on Monday reminded her of the site's troubled first days last October.
In Monroe, La., agent Roanita Jenkins said after the site told her an account was successfully created, it told her it wasn't valid. After an hour on the phone, even a call center representative couldn't get the application started, Jenkins said.
Consumers ran into some glitches on the last day to sign up for health insurance on March 31, 2014.(Photo: healthcare.gov)
"Without the site showing the account has been created on their end, we are not able to log in and submit an application," Jenkins said. "The only way to submit an application is over the phone with .gov and that isn't working very well, either."
Bob Ziff, an agent in Morrisville, Pa., said his office helped about 200 people enroll in the exchange before this weekend.
He said the system worked "reasonably well" before Sunday; then he and his agents started getting a message when they visited HealthCare.gov that the site was overloaded. Since Monday morning, he has only been able to enroll one person.
At one point Monday morning, the site told visitors that it was "down for maintenance" and asked people to "please try again later." At midday, the site showed a message saying the site had a lot of visitors and needed shoppers to go to a virtual waiting room until they could be connected.
Anticipating a surge in interest as the deadline neared, the administration announced last week it would extend the deadline for those who have issues signing up.
Insurance agents confirmed that they are seeing a last-minute crush of people trying to enroll. "My phone is ringing off the hook," said Ronnell Nolan, CEO of Health Agents for America, which represents insurance agents.
Even with Monday's problems with the online health care exchange, the White House tried to put the focus on the progress since the early days of the troubled launch of the website.
"There has been a remarkable story since the dark days of October and November, which has resulted in a situation where here on the last day of enrollment we're looking at a number substantially larger than 6 million enrolled," White House press secretary Jay Carney told reporters. "I dare say that there are few people in this room — including some of the folks who work in the White House — who would have predicted that we would get to that number."
Carney said the White House did not yet have a date of when it would release a final tally for those who signed up for coverage through the federal and state exchanges during the six-month open enrollment period.
Contributing: Alicia McElhaney
SHARE924CONNECTEMAILMORE
Source: Top Stories - Google News - http://ift.tt/1hWjewc
Today is the big Obamacare deadline (except for the extension 
