Is Healthcare.gov Working Now? Yes and No

Is healthcare.gov working well now, as the Obama Administration claims that it is? Some of Monday’s media coverage is skeptical. On the front page of the Times, there is an article under the headline: “INSURERS CLAIM HEALTH WEBSITE IS STILL FLAWED.” The Wall Street Journal went with “INSURERS SEEK TO BYPASS HEALTH SITE.”

Given the problems that the online exchange has experienced in the past couple of months, reporters are right to be skeptical. Despite the numerous fixes that have been made to the site and the extra capacity that has been added, there are still frequent reports of it going down. And a couple of weeks ago, Henry Chao, a senior official at the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (C.M.S.), the agency responsible for healthcare.gov, conceded in a testimony on Capitol Hill that much of its back end—the bit responsible for billing and payments—remains to be built.

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