Healthcare.gov Fails to Meet Its October 1 Advance Press

The editors of the Washington Post say that Healthcare.gov still isn’t where it should have been on October 1:

Leading up to its weekend deadline to get the site working, Obama administration officials assured the public that the “vast majority of users” would be able to use it. To them, “vast majority” means 80 percent of users — which is still too low. Officials boast the site is able to handle 50,000 simultaneous users. Yet that was the goal for Oct. 1, a day on which five times that many tried to access the site at once.

Then there are less-visible issues. Officials admit they are still having trouble with the files that transfer enrollment information to insurers. Other parts of the site’s back end still aren’t built. It was right — but not encouraging — that the Obama administration extended the date by which people have to apply to get coverage that starts on Jan. 1. Even that, though, is risky: Insurers will have only eight days to work out the logistics of enrolling those signing up late this month.

let alone where it should be now. And, as I mentioned in a post earlier today, the almost 40% of Americans who don’t have a broadband connection at home will still need to choose among using a dial-up connection to access Healthcare.gov, almost certainly a nightmarish experience, signing up with one of the healthcare exchanges over the phone, or doing so manually.

I wonder what the latency, the time from initial application to completed enrollment, is for persons enrolling exclusively via paper and the mails.