'Navigators' doubt federal health website will run smoothly

The Obama administration has said the government's troubled healthcare.gov website will function smoothly by the end of today. Those paid to help enroll Americans in health plans remain doubtful.

From Florida to Alaska, the "navigators" designated to sign people up for insurance under the health care overhaul say that while the online federal insurance exchange has improved since its Oct. 1 debut, outages and errors continue to prevent many from using it.

The site is "kind of hit and miss," said Karen Basha Egozi of the Epilepsy Foundation of Florida. "There have definitely been more hits lately than in the past. But I know there are cases where people still get locked out when they try to purchase a plan."

Tyann Boling, chief operating officer of Enroll Alaska, a unit of Anchorage-based Northrim Benefits Group, said she now rates the site a four out of 10, with 10 being fully functional.

Healthcare.gov, which serves 36 states including Florida and Alaska, was designed to help uninsured Americans buy new health plans by March 31, as required under the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Delays and software problems, though, have plagued the site, giving support to the law's harshest critics.

Enroll Alaska has signed up 52 people in health plans out of about 2,200 who have requested help since the site opened. Boling said she is mostly successful on the site with simple cases. For uncommon financial situations, the site is not able to capture the complications of people's lives, she said.

On a Nov. 27 conference call with reporters, Julie Bataille, a spokeswoman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, reiterated the administration's pledge to have the site working smoothly for "the vast majority of users" by Dec. 1.