Alaskans were able to sign up for health insurance using Healthcare.gov over the weekend, quelling initial fears that the website might have problems during the first few days of open enrollment under the Affordable Care Act.
Staff with two organizations working to sign people up, insurance brokerage Enroll Alaska and nonprofit United Way, said Monday that Healthcare.gov was working smoothly and was accurately calculating plan costs.
Healthcare.gov is the portal for Alaska's and more than 30 other states' federally facilitated health care marketplace, where people can apply for health insurance tax credits and compare insurance plans side-by-side.
In 2013, the website debuted with massive glitches. Enrollment was nearly impossible for all but a handful of Alaskans during the first weeks of open enrollment. Enroll Alaska abandoned the website for nearly six weeks until problems were fixed.
At a press conference Friday, Susan Johnson, regional director with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said the website had "hit the restart button" for 2014 and is much improved from the year before. The application process has been consolidated to fewer screens, she said, and is less intensive.
Yet also on Friday, Enroll Alaska noted that a window-shopping tool was inaccurately calculating subsidies, thus giving Alaskans wrong information regarding how much their plans would cost. It was unclear whether those same problems would present themselves during the actual application process, and Enroll Alaska wrote that it would suspend enrollments until it could verify the subsidies were accurate after people logged in to the site.
Johnson acknowledged Friday that the subsidy calculator for the "window-shopping" tool was inaccurate and said the problem could present itself within the actual application.
Anticipated difficulties were not realized, however, when open enrollment began Saturday.
Healthcare.gov is accurately calculating subsidies, Enroll Alaska operations manager Aimee Crocker said Monday. However, the window-shopping tool is still incorrect, she added.
Over the weekend, Enroll Alaska signed up roughly 60 people, Crocker said. About half of those were Alaskans re-enrolling in plans, and the other half were enrolling for the first time, she said.
"The hardest part is if people forgot their user names or passwords," Crocker said. "If they have that information it's been pretty smooth sailing."
Enroll Alaska has 10 staff members focused on enrollment, including one working in Juneau and two based at Mat-Su Regional Medical Center. It hopes to enroll 5,400 Alaskans during open enrollment, Crocker said.
Also over the weekend, two United Way navigators successfully signed up Alaskans. "The Healthcare.gov website worked fine," United Way vice president Sue Brogan wrote.
United Way is one of several grantees working to sign people up. To find help nearest you, call United Way at 211 in Anchorage or 800-478-2221 outside the city, Brogan said.
Alaskans can learn about open enrollment during a free education and assistance session at Z.J. Loussac Library in Midtown Anchorage from 2 to 5 p.m. Tuesday, Brogan wrote.
Open enrollment ends Feb. 15.