The Healthcare.gov website, which will enable Americans to purchase insurance under "Obamacare," will be fixed by November end, per the White House.
On Friday, October 25, the Obama administration said that the government has appointed a new contractor Jeffrey Zients to fix the Helathcare.gov issue.
Zients also disclosed at a conference call that Quality Software Services Inc (QSSI) will now be serving as the general contractor to supervise the bugs-ridden website, which is "fixable."
"By the end of November, healthcare.gov will work smoothly for the vast majority of users," said Zients."It will take a lot of work and there are a lot of problems that will need to be addressed, but the bottom line is that it is fixable."
In October 2010, online insurance exchange was launched under the Affordable Care Act, dubbed Obamacare, which would offer health insurance to several million uninsured individuals in the U.S. However, several individuals have encountered error messages and long periods of wait when trying to sign into Healthcare.gov.
Nearly 90 percent of individuals who try to create an account are able to do so, but cannot complete the application, per Zients.
Zients has revealed that he has several tech experts looking into the issues with the website and his team is looking to prioritize the repairs. Per his team of experts, there are "dozens of items" that have been identified and need fixing. Zients, however, did not provide additional details pertaining to the exact nature of the glitches.
The glitches in the website have been a political embarrassment for Obama's administration. Kathleen Sebelius, the Health and Human Services Secretary, revealed that while the website is not living up to peoples' expectations, it was not beyond repair.
"We want to dispel the notion that the website is fatally flawed. It can be fixed and it will be fixed," said Sebelius, speaking at forum on enrollment in the new national healthcare system in San Antonio, Texas.
Nearly 7 million people are expected to enroll for individual insurance in 2014, many of whom will be entitled to government subsidies. However, consumers are required to enlist by mid-December to get insurance by January 1, 2014. Those who have not enrolled by end March will need to pay a penalty under the Affordable Care Act.
