More than 24,000 people will receive new assistance from the state to pay for health insurance in 2014 and tens of thousands of people who previously received such subsidies will continue to get them, despite a bungled overhaul of the online insurance marketplace run by the Massachusetts Health Connector.
Agency officials on Tuesday celebrated the modest gain in enrollees, which counters fears that the Connector’s faulty website would cause the state’s notably high rate of insurance coverage to decline.
The state was able to maintain coverage for tens of thousands of Massachusetts residents only by extending assistance programs that were scheduled to end in December and creating new tools to process applications offline. And most of those receiving new subsidized coverage haven’t yet been able to choose their preferred health plan.
What is unclear is how many other people may go without coverage in January because they were not able to complete an application before the Tuesday deadline, stymied by an online system that locked users out, was slow to process data, and was never fully functional.
The Connector’s insurance marketplace was created under a 2006 state law to provide affordable options to part-time workers, the self-employed, or people who otherwise do not have access to employer-sponsored plans. It became a model for the Affordable Care Act. The state’s program was relaunched in October with a completely new website to comply with the federal law and streamline state assistance programs, and that is when the trouble began.
Nationally, about 2.1 million people have signed up for private insurance plans through federal and state exchanges. US and Massachusetts health officials on Tuesday could not say how many new enrollees were previously uninsured.
The state website was developed by the same firm, CGI, that created the federal marketplace used by more than 30 states, which also got off to a rocky start. While the federal website has seen improvements, problems with the state website were so persistent that Connector officials last month said they would forgo trying to fix it before the end of the year and instead focus on processing applications without it.
The Connector delayed the expiration date of many existing state assistance programs, extending coverage for about 124,000 people through March. Another 130,000 people have been moved from Connector plans to Medicaid under the expansion of that program in Massachusetts.
Most of the 24,256 people newly covered by subsidized plans have been enrolled in temporary coverage while the state processes their applications offline to determine their eligibility for assistance — something the new website was supposed to do automatically.
“As frustrating as these IT problems are, today’s news that we have met our goals of protecting the coverage gains that Massachusetts has already achieved through health care reform, and adding to the ranks of the insured in Massachusetts is cause for encouragement,” Connector spokesman Jason Lefferts wrote in an e-mail.
Of the 119,045 applications started through the Connector, about half were completed as of Tuesday.
The application filled out by Charlene James-Tanny, an independent technical writer from Lynn, wasn’t among them.
She kept her private plan so that she could keep seeing the doctors she needs to care for chronic kidney disease, but she tried submitting an application for subsidized coverage for her husband and 16-year-old son, who have been uninsured since November. After several hours on the phone, a customer service representative told the couple their income could not be verified because of technical problems that might not be resolved until Friday.
“We’re in limbo,” she said.
The Connector created a temporary coverage program for anyone who submitted an application for a subsidized plan, even if they didn’t complete the enrollment process, to account for delays in processing. But without a completed application, James-Tanny said, she was told the family would not have coverage in January.
While her husband and son are generally healthy, she worries about one of them being in an accident.
Of the 10,250 applications submitted for unsubsidized coverage, about one-third of the individuals or families have fully enrolled in a plan. Another one-third have selected a plan but have not paid their first premium to complete the process. They have until Jan. 10 to do so, while those who did not select a plan will not be insured through the Connector in January.
Anne Mahon was able to buy an unsubsidized plan through the Connector this week, after hours of frustration with the website. The real estate agent from Belmont said the Connector plan saved her several hundred dollars a month, compared with the COBRA plan offered by her husband’s former employer.
“The online experience is frustrating, but the opportunity to call and talk to somebody that can help you through it, [makes it] so easy,” she said.
People who remain uninsured in 2014 could be subject to both state and federal penalties. But the state penalty is issued only when someone has been uninsured for more than two consecutive months. The federal penalty does not kick in until April 1.