(Bloomberg) — HealthCare.gov, the enrollment website for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) exchanges run by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), was hit by a glitch for several hours one day before the latest deadline for consumers to sign up for health insurance.
Some applications for the qualified health plans (QHPs) offered through HealthCare.gov couldn't be submitted on Saturday because of "intermittent issues" with verifying a customer's income through external sources, Katie Hill, a spokeswoman for HHS, said in an e-mailed statement. She confirmed Saturday evening that service had been restored.
"The IRS and HealthCare.gov teams worked together to resolve the issue," Hill said in a statement. She said consumers who were unable to complete an application can return to the website to do so, and that, if they miss the deadline, because of the glitch they will be offered a special enrollment period (SEP).
The regular enrollment period started Nov. 15 and ended Sunday.
It's not the first time that HealthCare.gov has faced technological issues. Last year, the government signed up only about 2.2 million people in the site's first three months as the staff struggled to fix software bugs. The government said last month that it had signed up about 9.5 million people for exchange QHP coverage for this year.
