By Rakhi Kundra ’17, News Staff Writer

On October 1^st, in the midst of the political clamor over the government shutdown, healthcare.gov — the keystone website of President Obama’s landmark health care reform bill, the Affordable Care Act — opened for business. It was designed to serve as a health care exchange, in order to facilitate the purchase of government-regulated and standardized individual health insurance plans in the 36 states that have opted not to create their own state exchanges. Consumers, upon signing up, theoretically should be able to compare health insurance plans offered in their state and see if they qualify for federal health care subsidies.

However, right from the start, the site has been bogged down by technical glitches. Potential consumers have run into problem after problem. At various points, according to the New York Times, consumers have been unable to create accounts, compare plans, provide the proper information and confirm enrollment. Furthermore, even the fixes haven’t worked. To deal with the traffic overload, the government created a virtual waiting room. However this only led to more confusion, thus the feature was eventually removed. By one estimate, from consulting firm Millard Brown Digital, only 1% of the 3.7 million people who attempted to register on the federal exchange in the first week actually managed to enroll.

The official numbers are just as bleak. According to the Obama administration, a mere 26,794 enrolled in federal exchanges in October, and 79,000 in the state-run ones. In total, just 106,000 people signed up nationwide, fewer than one-fifth of what officials had projected.

The website has received negative reviews at Newark Academy, even amongst supporters of Obamacare. Young Democrats Club President Eric Schwed ’14 said, “For such an important piece of legislation, it’s astounding how badly the marketplace website has been handled. I think the Obama administration has been working to fix it, and they aren’t pretending it’s worked perfectly. The bailout has been a small holdup, but won’t ultimately prevent the long term success of Obamacare.” For those who are against the new health care law, the website troubles indicate issues with the law itself. Young Republicans co-president Jai Ghose ’14 said, “I think the websites have been very poorly rolled out.  They were given a very daunting task, and it seems like they were setting themselves up for failure.  Also notable is how important the websites are to the rollout of Obamacare. Only 50,000 people have enrolled, and getting people to enroll in the beginning is very important for setting up an insurance system.” Young Republican Club Advisor Mr. Bitler added, “According to the Constitution, the federal government has no business being involved in my health care or in anybody else’s health care.  I’m opposed on constitutional grounds, and I’m opposed on freedom grounds, because it’s a tyrannical measure of the government to try and force people to do all sorts of things with their health care that they don’t want to do.”

The Obama administration has acknowledged the issues with the health care law and has launched a “tech surge” in response. Beleaguered Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius enlisted Jeff Zients, the former acting Director of the Office of Management and Budget, to right the ship and fix the glitches. They have brought in experts from Google and Oracle to help them with this daunting task.

With coverage beginning as early as January 1, the administration hoped to have 80% of users able to enroll by November 30. Supporters of the legislation hope the glitches can be smoothed out as soon as possible, so that users can see the true benefits of the law: insuring those who weren’t previously insured. Schwed said, “I think the old healthcare system clearly wasn’t working….[and] while Obamacare isn’t perfect…it was a necessary change. Under the old system the government spent too much on healthcare, and not enough people were covered.”