Posted on 10/24/2013 12:31:09 PM PDT by library user
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) estimated consumers would take an average of 28 minutes to sign up for Obamacare, according to a notice the agency sent to the White House in February.
The American Action Forum revealed Thursday that HHS earlier this year predicted consumers would need less than 30 minutes to complete online applications for the health care insurance marketplace. HHS reported those projections to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
The Healthcare.gov process has not proven so easy in practice. Since its rollout on Oct. 1, the Obamacare exchange has been plagued with technical issues and “glitches,” resulting in few enrollees and long wait times. Obamacare “success stories” applaud the rare cases in which people were able to sign up over a period of several days.
“After more than two months of review, the government estimated it would receive more than 3 million individual responses and it would take the public 1.4 million hours to complete the required paperwork,” said Sam Batkins, director of regulatory policy for the American Action Forum, in a blog post on the group’s website.
“In other words, HHS assumed the public would spend just 28 minutes to complete the ‘Online Application,’” he said.
“HHS also estimated these burden hours would cost no money,” Batkins added.
When using the exact estimates that 3,035,433 responses would take 1,480,944 hours to complete, the time increases slightly. Dividing the number of total hours by the number of applications equals 0.48 hours, or precisely 29.2 minutes.
“According to the actual accounts of navigating healthcare.gov and applying for insurance, the time spent online has ranged from seven hours to several days,” Batkins said.
HHS sent the estimate to the OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs on Feb. 5, 2013, and the White House approved it on April 30.
The enrollment process includes 90 pages of applications, which HHS predicted could be completed in less than a half hour.
The eligibility application requires standard personal information, such as name, address, income, and Social Security number, though the government assures family members of applicants that their immigration status will not be solicited. The privacy section states: “We won’t ask any questions about your medical history. Household members who don’t want coverage won’t be asked questions about citizenship or immigration status.”
The eligibility application also includes an option for voter registration and asks, “Does anyone in the household want to register to vote?”
Five days before the launch of Healthcare.gov, President Obama praised the website, comparing the consumer experience to making a purchase on Amazon.
“Visit healthcare.gov,” he said on Sept. 26. “It’s a website where you can compare and purchase affordable health insurance plans, side by side, the same way you shop for a plane ticket on Kayak, the same way you shop for a TV on Amazon. You just go on and you start looking. And here are all the options.”
According to reports, just days before it was set to launch, the website crashed with just 100 people using it, and IT executives warned that the website was not ready.
Three weeks into the exchange, Consumer Reports is advising Americans to stay away from Healthcare.gov, due to its technical problems.
“It is clear there were many missteps with the rollout of healthcare.gov,” Batkins said, “but perhaps the first mistake was assuming it would take less than 30 minutes to complete the online application.”
No kidding!
“the same way you shop for a TV on Amazon”
I actually purchased a TV on Amazon and it took about two minutes!
FYI - American Action Forum is RINO central.
Can you imagine a business that screws up things as much as these people? They would be bankrupt.
I don’t want these people anywhere near my healthcare!
ROTFL. Sounds like my first geocities web site in 1994. It didn't cost the taxpayer any $$$, however.
In a few months this will all blow over and be forgotten. Just like the IRS scandals, Fast & Furious, Benghazi, etc,etc,etc.
The sheeple will not wake up from their entertainment induced comas, cell phones, gaming PC’s and hollywood movies to give a sh!t about the country.
They would rather be lead around with a steel ring in their nose.
Oh well.
So, ‘rats can just insert and pass legislation to accommodate voter registration in this POS... Should lead to a new forceful push to place tax day adjacent to election day.
Why the feds would believe that the dumbed-down sheeple could read 90 pages in 29 minutes is totally nuts. The public skools have educated so many folks that now it probably would take a year for a lot of them to read 90 pages.
Why the feds would believe that the dumbed-down sheeple could read 90 pages in 29 minutes is totally nuts. The public skools have educated so many folks that now it probably would take a year for a lot of them to read 90 pages.
I filled out a security form for the Navy. I think it said it would take 1.5 hours. It took the entire day. I had to get my Dad’s naturalization papers from 1943. I had to get all kinds of stuff that most people don’t even have. What kills me is I’d already signed up in the same system for my previous company and they had all of this stuff. I was told that they wouldn’t look it up and I’d have to enter it again. (Here’s the best part. If you leave anything blank, you can’t move on. So I had to invent a zip code (form 1943) for a military court at an Army base that no longer exists before I could move to the next page.)So it’s not like if you don’t know you can leave it blank.
I’m in eVerify. Yet I had to bring in my birth certificate probably every 8 months and do it all over again. I don’t want the government involved in anything.
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