Health exchange's one-year mark: Looking forward, looking back

Oct 3 2014

As of Oct. 1, the health law's online marketplaces have been up and running for a year. News outlets offer status reports on what appears to have gone well, what problems remain as the second open enrollment period approaches and how these factors are playing politically.

NPR: Obamacare's First Year: How'd It Go?
Exactly one year ago, the Obamacare insurance exchanges stumbled into existence. Consumers struggled to sign up for its online marketplace -; and the Obama administration was pummeled. Eventually, HealthCare.gov's problems were mostly fixed, and two weeks ago, the administration announced 7.3 million people have bought insurance through it so far this year. So, was the health exchanges' first year a success -; or something less? (Ydstie, 10/1).

The New York Times: Health Law Resurfaces As A Political Punching Bag
Criticism of the Affordable Care Act has been conspicuously absent in the midterm election campaign cycle, with President Obama's handling of foreign policy and immigration easier targets to pin on Democrats. But on the anniversary of the botched rollout of HealthCare.gov, talk of "Obamacare" is buzzing again, with remembrances of the website's early failures, complaints of canceled insurance plans and laments of broken promises (Rappeport, 10/1).

The Associated Press: AP-GfK Poll: Economy Still The Top Election Issue
Recent headlines could make you think this election would be different. Perhaps, for the first time since the Great Recession, the economy wouldn't be the top issue. The latest Associated Press-GfK poll suggests that's not going to happen. Nine in 10 likely voters in the survey said the economy was an important issue, outpacing rising concerns about terrorism, ongoing concerns about health care, and the social issues that have led to sharp clashes on the campaign trail (10/2).

NPR: A Year Later, HealthCare.Gov Has Found Its Footing But Problems Remain
Robert Siegel talks to Marilyn Tavenner, administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, about the one-year anniversary of the Affordable Care Act insurance marketplace rollout (10/1).

The Wall Street Journal: Healthcare.gov Delays Web Host Switch
The federal government has shelved plans to transfer the HealthCare.gov insurance website to a new hosting service for the coming enrollment period, delaying a move that was supposed to fix reliability problems. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services signed a contract last year to replace Verizon Communications Inc. with Hewlett-Packard Co. As the host of HealthCare.gov, the site used by most people to obtain plans under the Affordable Care Act. The Verizon platform had a series of outages last year that shut the site and affected the federal data hub on which all states rely to transmit information about enrollees' identity and income (Radnofsky and Armour, 10/1).

Meanwhile, the legal challenges continue -

Politico: Obamacare And SCOTUS, The Sequel?
The U.S. Supreme Court will begin its new term Monday and, once again, Obamacare could be on the docket. The justices have been asked to weigh in on whether the Affordable Care Act's subsidies can go to any American, regardless of whether their state runs a health insurance exchange or relies on the federal one. They'll soon be asked, too, whether religious nonprofits have to provide contraception in employee health plans, a follow-up to last spring's Hobby Lobby case (Haberkorn, 10/1).