Amid the US Government shutdown, President Barack Obama’s healthcare push got off to a web start on Tuesday, with nearly three million Americans taking a first look at the “affordable” insurance options available to them under “Obamacare”.
Although the authorities were gratified by the level of public interest, the extraordinary volume of web traffic led to glitches with the federal website being jammed, resulting in error messages.
The demand “exceeds anything that we had expected,” President Obama said at a White House event on Tuesday afternoon even as the Department of Health and Human Services reported later that 2.8 million people visited the federal HealthCare.gov website, which serves residents of more than 30 of the 50 US States.
With the Republicans campaigning for at least a year-long delay of Obamacare, after their failed efforts to repeal it for good, the opening of the web marketplace was regarded as a key victory for broader implementation of the plan for mandatory and affordable health insurance for all Americans.
The marketplace with wide options will enroll people seeking health insurance over a six-month period, with coverage beginning from January 1, 2014. Flanked by new beneficiaries of his initiative, Obama said at the White House event that the Affordable Care Act, popularly called Obamacare, was here to stay and, thanks to its own funding sources, it would not be impacted by a Government shutdown.
“This is a historic day for a good reason,” Obama said, adding: “It’s been a long time coming, but today, Americans who have been forced to go without insurance can now visit healthcare.gov and enroll in affordable new plans that offer quality coverage. That starts today.”
Countering the “whole bunch of predictions” by Republicans about this law, Obama said they haven’t come true. “There are no “death panels.” Costs haven’t skyrocketed; they’re growing at the slowest rate in 50 years. The last three years since I signed the Affordable Care Act into law are the three slowest rates of health spending growth on record,” he asserted.