Hobbled Connector has folks scrambling

Eddy Conway, a 62-year-old systems administrator whose medical insurance ends when he retires Dec. 31, has been trying to enroll in coverage for the past 10 weeks through the state’s online marketplace created by the Affordable Care Act.

Less than a week before the enrollment deadline to get coverage Jan. 1, the downtown Hono­lulu resident is scrambling to sign up on the Hawai‘i Health Connector website, which has been down for the past five days.

"It’s now down to days. If I have a heart attack and go to Queen’s (Medical Center) on Jan. 2, I have no insurance. There is behind me a tidal wave of people who also have not been served."

Consumers must enroll in a plan by Monday to ensure they have coverage as of Jan. 1.

A Hawai‘i Health Connector call center employee said Tuesday that the website crashed Friday, preventing many consumers from logging into their accounts and selecting health plans. Call center employees said they aren’t able to do anything when the system is down and didn’t know when the website would be working.

"It has been down since Friday, started to come back up on Monday, but unfortunately it still seems to have problems," a call center employee who isn’t an official Connector spokes­woman told the Hono­lulu Star-Advertiser on Tuesday. "I’ve been trying to put in an application for over an hour and a half. I haven’t been able to enroll anyone in a plan today."

Tom Matsuda, who took over as the Connector’s interim executive director last week, said in an emailed response to the Hono­lulu Star-Advertiser that the website has been taken down to add new enhancements and functions.

"Typically these maintenance windows are scheduled at night and on weekends, during periods of low demand, to be as least obtrusive to the consumer’s experience as possible," Ma­tsuda said. "To add new enhancements, this requires us to take the site down, and if a user tries to log in during that time, they would not be able to access the site. Otherwise, the site is running and stable.

"Beyond maintenance window outages, there are likely to be areas for improvement," Ma­tsuda said. "We recently implemented a new testing protocol and are hoping to see site problems reduced. Should consumers have additional questions regarding their experience using the site, they are encouraged to call our customer service support center at 1-877-628-5076."

Matsuda said as of Saturday the Connector had enrolled 960 individuals and 47 employees.

"We are seeing good number of people successfully using the system," Ma­tsuda said. "In our system today, eligible consumers are able to enroll in qualified health insurance plans."

The Connector, the state-based health insurance exchange assigned to sign up Hawaii residents for medical coverage under President Barack Obama’s signature health reform law, got off to a slow start. It was supposed to launch Oct. 1 but did not go live until Oct. 15 due to software problems.

"They had two years to assemble the software, they were two weeks late and since then it’s been eight weeks and they still are unstable," Conway said. "That’s my beef: They shouldn’t be unstable two weeks before my policy expires."

Barry Abrahams, owner of Big Island restaurant Red Water Cafe in Wai­mea, has been trying since the first week of October to enroll his seven workers whose policies expire at year’s end. So far, he has been able to sign up just one employee.

"After two months of almost daily phone calls or emails, we have been unsuccessful," he said. "None of the rest have even heard anything back. It has been extremely time-consuming. It’s just ridiculous."

Individuals and small businesses can receive tax credits only if enrolling in a health plan on the Connector.

"We keep trying, hoping that it will all come together before the deadline," Abrahams said.

Ma­tsuda said last week the Connector’s goal is to sign up 50,000 people — 10,000 individuals and 40,000 small-business workers — by June 30 to be financially sustainable after $204.3 million in federal grants expire at the end of 2014.