Blocked out at www.HealthCare.gov? Bypass on way soon, feds say

Source: CNN

Washington (CNN) -- Americans frustrated by attempts to purchase health insurance on www.HealthCare.gov will soon be able to determine their eligibility for tax subsidies and purchase insurance directly from insurance companies and private exchanges, a government spokeswoman announced Tuesday.

Julie Bataille of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the agency that oversees the government's online insurance exchange, told reporters on a conference call that as of Tuesday morning, the process called "direct enrollment" should be functioning.

"With the fixes that we've put in place as of this morning, we do believe that the majority of those high-priority fixes for direct enrollment to work have been addressed," Bataille said. "We continue to work with issuers and work through some additional issues."

Customers not eligible for tax subsidies have been able to use direct enrollment since October 1, but the fixes put in place Tuesday expand the process to all customers seeking insurance on the individual market.


Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/19/politics/health-care-website-bypass/index.html

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News that direct enrollment can now be accomplished through private insurance exchanges such as eHealth.com and GetInsured.com, which interface with federal systems for the purpose of determining eligibility for subsidies, showing that additional functionality continues to be added to the ACA.