Revamped HealthCare.gov site ready for prime time, officials say

Senior administration officials are touting the capacity and ease of use of the revamped HealthCare.gov site in advance of the coming open enrollment period. Andy Slavitt, principal deputy administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said on Oct. 8 that the site would be able to handle "significantly more" traffic than the 125,000 simultaneous users HealthCare.gov could support at its peak in March 2014, when the inaugural open enrollment season was ending.

According to a Reuters report, forecasters are predicting as many as 13 million will either enroll in new coverage or renew existing coverage during the next open enrollment, which kicks off Nov. 15.

"We're in a very different spot than we were last year, when we were building from whole cloth," Slavitt said, according to the report. "Now we've got a body of knowledge that we're continuing to build and learn against." (Slavitt and HealthCare.gov CEO Kevin Counihan offered an advance look at the site in a private briefing for a small group of reporters.)

System testing is taking place farther in advance of open enrollment than was the case in 2013, officials say, with three rounds of testing completed and a fourth, involving insurance carriers, underway.

The new HealthCare.gov also offers a simpler interface for first-time users that reduces the number of screens required to navigate through registration and plan selection.