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SALT LAKE CITY — When the new national healthcare website, healthcare.gov, launched on Oct. 1, Randall Bennett said he jumped online to sign up for coverage.
It took weeks of dealing with the site's computer glitches, but he finally found a way in.
Bennett said it was worth the wait to get badly needed benefits for his family.
"I started my own company about two years ago," said Bennett, president of Vidpresso. "I left my full-time job a year ago, and that's when I really needed health care."
When Bennett first started trying to shop the national healthcare marketplace, he got in easily.
"I was like, ‘Holy cow! I got in. This is amazing,'" Bennett said.
But that victory was short-lived, and he soon joined the ranks of other Americans encountering the same problem: a blank, white screen on the site.
Bennett is a computer expert, so he began trying a few tricks. First, he tried logging into the website when he thought fewer people would be logged on.
"If I was logging in on Sunday, when everyone was watching football, that was the time that worked," he said.
Soon, that strategy didn't work either. So, Bennett got another idea.
"If you log in using a special kind of web browser in a special mode," he said, "you can actually log in anytime."
In layman's terms, Bennett said that means clearing out your cookies, caches and browser history, and setting up as an anonymous user or "incognito."
"This little bug that the government doesn't really know about, it's preventing millions of people from being able to log in," Bennett said.
Help for the non-expert
Health policy experts who are working with Utahns to sign up for health insurance are seeing the frustration with clients as well.
"We don't expect people to know what the browsers are and what the cookies are, nor do we expect them to know what a premium or deductible is," said Randal Serr, director of Take Care Utah.
Serr said navigators are available to get people through the new national health care website and help them figure out the best coverage for individuals or families.
"We can go to people or they can come to our organizations," Serr said.
Fallout in Washington, D.C.
Wednesday, President Obama admitted the website has problems.
"Nobody's madder than me about the fact that the website isn't working as well as it should, which means it's going to get fixed," he said.
The president promised tech experts are working around the clock to fix the bugs on the new health care website. He also said the government has added extra staff to call centers where service representatives are taking calls 24 hours a day to help people sign up for health insurance.
Meanwhile, those computer glitches are drawing fire from Republicans.
"It's been a fiasco. Send Air Force One out to Silicon Valley, load it up with some smart people," Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said. "Bring 'em back to Washington. Fix this problem. It's ridiculous."
Glitches worth it in the end, Obama says
Despite the glitches on site, the president urged people to keep trying. The end result, he said, is worth it.
"Nearly 6 in 10 uninsured Americans will find that they can get coverage for less than $100 a month," Obama said.
However, that's not the case for Bennett. Insurance for his family will be more expensive in some ways. His monthly premium jumped from $420 to $720, but he said his family will now have maternity and dental coverage.
"The things that (national health care) gives me are benefits that weren't accessible to me before," he said.
Bennett and his wife are in their 20s and have with a 2-year-old boy. They plan on having more kids in the future.
"We couldn't find maternity care at all," Bennett said. "The process to even get insurance before was so difficult, that surprisingly, even with all the bugs, I still find healthcare.gov more simple."
Health policy workers estimate roughly 300,000 Utahns to qualify for subsidies. As for how many are taking advantage of the mandated health care, experts said they know more by mid-November.
In the meantime, Utahns who are still having trouble signing up for the new national health care program need to remember there are three other ways to sign up:
- Download a paper application and mail it in
- Call the 24 hour call center at 1-800-318-2596
- Visit community health care centers and work with navigators
Utahns who want health insurance coverage to begin Jan.1, 2014, must sign up for health care by Dec. 15.
