As Health Marketplaces Open, Glitches Abound

The insurance marketplaces that form a pillar of the Affordable Care Act are now officially live … kind of. As uninsured Americans nationwide logged on to Healthcare.gov Tuesday morning, many were asked to keep waiting.

Meanwhile, there was some success in Connecticut:

We just confirmed our first enrollment! A #CT family of 3 just got access to affordable health care coverage thanks to #Obamacare

— Access Health CT (@AccessHealthCT) October 1, 2013

Kentucky’s exchange crashed Tuesday, announcing that “citizens have shown tremendous response to KYNECT” but the “Website is currently experiencing log in issues and our technical team is working to resolve the problem.”

Surge of early #kynect applications shows the pent up demand for affordable, quality health coverage for Kentuckians @kynectky #ACA

— Steve Beshear (@GovSteveBeshear) October 1, 2013

The situation was much the same in New York, where a surge of traffic created massive log-in issues for those trying to enroll:

New York's health insurance market has had 2 million visits in its first two hours. https://t.co/0l0l5PDtKX

— Sarah Kliff (@sarahkliff) October 1, 2013

Despite the troubles and the government shutdown over ACA disagreements, the White House celebrated Tuesday morning:

Thanks to the House GOP, the government is shutting down. Thanks to #Obamacare, uninsured Americans can #GetCovered: http://t.co/GNfbftrfo3

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) October 1, 2013