Have you tried turning it off and turning it back on again?
WASHINGTON, D.C. – In the ongoing disaster that has been called the rollout of Obamacare, it now appears that the critical data center tied to Healthcare.gov has crashed. All enrollments have been halted to the 50 states.
Penalties for not enrolling in the program begin Feb. 14th.
This is just the latest in a string of critical failures in the launch of the president’s health care programs. The data center is operated by Verizon, who have been summoned by President Barack Obama to conduct a “tech surge” to fix Healthcare.gov. They have no idea yet when the center will be active again. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is due to testify before congress about the program later this week.
WATCH: Saturday Night Live roasts Kathleen Sebelius!
The outage started early on Sunday and caused the data center to lose connectivity with the federal government’s data services hub which links all the healthcare data together. Without it, consumers are unable to determine if they are eligible, or apply for health care programs. Just one day before, Sebelius was praising the hub’s ability to perform complex calculations quickly. She touted it as a success.
The website, when the data center is functional, is providing faulty data to insurers and individuals applying. Insurers are receiving information that is ‘totally useless’. Citizens are being given quotes for plans that do not match with the insurers website. Many are complaining of “sticker shock” due to soaring costs of premiums, without additional services provided.
