The U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary is touring the country to raise awareness about the health insurance marketplace and promote open enrollment, which starts Saturday, November 15 and runs through February 15, 2014. In a visit to Columbus Thursday, HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell said she has faith in the website’s reliability.
The marketplace was created by the Affordable Care Act, also known as “Obamacare.” When it launched for the first time last year, the website frequently crashed and confused consumers. Burwell has high hopes that things will be better this time around, but still wants people to be prepared for some hiccups along the way.
“In the private sector and in the public sector there’re going to be points in time where the system goes down for different reasons but the overall experience is going to be one that is improved both in terms of that operational functionality and that consumer engagement,” she said.
Current members have until December 15 to enter into a new plan—if they don’t then they’ll be automatically enrolled back into their current plan.
