Health Insurance Exchanges (HIX) successfully open despite glitches

Tom Sullivan | Government Health IT | October 1, 2013

...The federal hub known as Healthcare.gov had 1 million visitors before 7 a.m, President Barack Obama said on Tuesday, explaining that was five times more visitors than have ever surfed to Medicare.gov all at once. As such the federal government, as in those employees not furloughed, will be ramping up back-end IT today to meet that demand.

“Consider that just a couple of weeks ago, Apple rolled out a new mobile operating system, and within days they found a glitch, so they fixed it. I don't remember anybody suggesting Apple should stop selling iPhones or iPads or threatening to shut down the company if they didn't,” the President said. “That's not how we do things in America. We don't actively root for failure. We get to work, we make things happen, we make them better, we keep going.”

...Much like those early Internet startups whose websites took off far more than anticipated, President Obama called the overwhelming demand on exchanges "a good thing,” because it offers a sense of how important this is to millions of Americans.

“In the months ahead, tens of millions of Americans will discover new and affordable options for obtaining health insurance, many of them for the first time,” Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, MD, president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation wrote in A iant step toward a culture of health.  “The next six months will have their challenges. History tells us that an undertaking this substantial will have to evolve over time as it becomes part of American society.”