Obamacare success

While news coverage has focused on the website problems of the national health insurance program, state exchanges have gone merrily ahead enrolling consumers who find health insurance. Nationally, the state exchanges had enrolled 395,807 by Oct. 31.

Among state-run Western programs, Colorado has enrolled 19,164 and Washington has enrolled 48,995. Oregon, which has enrolled more than 56,000, has reduced its uninsured population by 10 percent.

Officials of the Nevada website, being run by the Sandoval administration, have not posted running tallies. A spokesperson said, “Nevada Health Link will report enrollment numbers on December 16, 2013 and April 1, 2014.” However, figures from state tracker Advisory.com say Nevada lags far behind other states after enrolling 1,757. It is not known why Nevada is not releasing numbers. Gov. Brian Sandoval opposes the program.

As for the states whose governors have refused to host exchanges and are having them run by the federal government, U.S. News columnist Leslie Marshall wrote, “This week, we hear Republicans say that the Affordable Care Act has failed because the website crashed. The website crashed when Twitter first launched. Has that failed?” Twitter, in fact, has become so known for crashes that Business Insider once ran an article headlined “Twitter Explains Why Twitter Crashes All The Time.”

The Nevada website encountered some early problems, but glitches have been reduced substantially. Kaiser Health News has reported that “it takes less than 20 seconds to start shopping for a health plan on the Nevada, Colorado and Connecticut exchanges where you can get a list of plans and prices by entering your zip code, age and annual income.” But other Western states appear to have done a better job of missionary work in areas populated by the working poor than Nevada. Cover Oregon sent notices to hundreds of thousands of people, using lists of state agencies with assistance programs.

In the Las Vegas Sun, a letter to the editor from Michelle Holzman read, “I am currently on a [Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996]-guaranteed plan that costs me $565 a month. If I get sick and need an urgent visit, mammogram or other OB-GYN services, I have to drive to Las Vegas from Pahrump. That's going to change. I enrolled in a [ACA] plan that will save me more than $200 a month and provide local urgent visit and OB-GYN services in Pahrump.”