Obamacare Sign-Up Ain't Over Till It's Over

The Obamacare rollout has again gone into overtime, extending beyond the March 31 deadline to enroll for health insurance for 2014.

Montana Insurance Commissioner Monica J. Lindeen on Tuesday released the following statement:

“If you tried to log in to healthcare.gov yesterday to buy insurance but were unable to finalize your purchase, don’t panic: You will still be able to buy health insurance even though open enrollment has ended.

“According to the latest information we have from the federal government, people who were ‘in line’ at healthcare.gov on March 31 will have the opportunity to finish their purchase for a limited period of time after the close of open enrollment. We encourage Montanans to keep some kind of record of their attempts to log in to healthcare.gov, such as a screen shot of the website, although verification of your attempts to log in may not be necessary if you follow up right away.”

Monday was the end of a national open enrollment period for Americans to buy health insurance. The federal healthcare marketplace website, http://www.healthcare.gov, experienced high traffic and could not accommodate all the users who wanted to buy insurance on the final day. Due to technical problems Monday, some Montanans were unable to access the site or were unable to finish their health insurance purchase.

The trouble was experienced in the Glasgow area, where a rural Valley County resident said he received email notification that he had indeed created a health insurance marketplace account – but what was described online as heavy traffic prevented him from completing sign-up. He was then advised online to call the program’s phone line and after several attempts to the overloaded line a recorded message asked him to provide his phone number – and nothing else. The recording said he would be called in five to seven days to complete enrollment.

Users will have an opportunity after the end of open enrollment to log back into healthcare.gov and finish their purchase. There will be a box users may check that indicates they were “in line” before the end of open enrollment.