HealthCare.gov is "fixable," but fixing it will take a lot of work, says management impresario Jeff Zients.
Zients has come on board at the U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Department to help advise on the botched exchange enrollment rollout.
Zients, a former CEO and chairman of two publicly traded companies, is also acting director at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the nation's first chief performance officer.
He told reporters during a press conference today that the HealthCare.gov system has been reviewed, and that the problems are unacceptable, but that the enrollment process will be largely on track by the end of November.
"We have a punch list of fixes, and we are going to punch them out one by one," Zients said.
He declined to give any numbers on enrollment projections, volume, completed applications or any other metrics for now, but he said that, for the "vast majority of users," HealthCare.gov would work smoothly by the end of November. He also noted that of all applications, more than half have come through the federal marketplace, not the state-based exchanges.
