Want Obamacare? Try the Phone
Aaron Amat/Shutterstock.com
By
Matt Berman
As technical problems continue at HealthCare.gov, officials suggest registering by phone.
The technical rollout for Obamacare's federal exchanges has not gone too swell, with serious outages at HealthCare.gov making signing up difficult if not, at times, impossible. Now, the Health Insurance Marketplace's official Twitter account has a mea culpa and a suggestion. "We know many of you are experiencing technical difficulties," it's Twitter feed reads. "We are working 24/7 to address these issues. You can also apply over the phone."
Trying to sign up for health insurance over the phone may sound a bit, well, miserable. But National Journal's Catherine Hollander gave a glimpse into how that process works on Wednesday in a Q&A with a contractor helping to operate two of the call centers for the federal exchange.
The contractor wouldn't say exactly how many phone calls they're getting, or how long the average conversation lasts. But he did say that they've actually been taking some applications over the phone and filling them out on paper when HealthCare.gov hasn't been "fully functional." You can read the whole thing here.
(Image via Aaron Amat/Shutterstock.com)
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