Obamacare deadline produces wait times at call centers

Obamacare’s main website is operating smoothly, but there are longer wait times at federal call centers, the Trump administration said Friday, as customers in much of the country faced a midnight deadline to get covered.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said customers can leave their contact information with call-center staff, so they don’t have to wait on the line. The agency said someone will call them back to make sure they find coverage that begins Jan. 1.

CMS officials said HealthCare.gov, which famously crashed upon launch in fall 2013, is working fine and that staff is laboring “day-and-night to help consumers have a seamless open enrollment experience.”

President Trump, whose attempts to repeal and replace Obamacare have failed, cut this year’s enrollment season in half. That means customers in dozens of states had from Nov. 1 to Dec. 15 to sign up on HealthCare.gov, though states operating their own websites are giving residents more time.

The 2018 enrollment period was the first one launched and fully overseen by the Trump administration. Customers who qualified for taxpayer subsidies often found better bargains this year, a ripple effect from the White House’s decision to cancel “cost-sharing” payments to insurers.

HealthCare.gov signups have been robust and surged in recent days, though analysts say the pace won’t be enough to match last year’s tally of 9.2 million, since the signup season is so much shorter.

Failure to expand the program’s customer base would be bad news for insurers, who’ve been hit with a smaller and sicker customer base than expected on the Affordable Care Act’s web exchanges, prompting them to increase premiums or leave the program entirely.

Critics say Mr. Trump has made things worse by slashing outreach and failing to promote the exchanges, leaving it to Democrats, activists and President Obama to tout their signature law.

Early Friday, Mr. Trump cheered the GOP’s tax plan and spoke about immigration and crime during a visit with FBI Academy graduates, yet the Obamacare deadline didn’t come up.

Mr. Trump frequently says Obamacare is “dead,” and he’s cheered efforts to repeal its individual mandate to get covered or pay a penalty as part of the Republican tax-cut bill heading for passage on Capitol Hill. And he wants to revive efforts to fully replace the 2010 law next spring.

Mr. Trump didn’t use his favorite broadcast tool — Twitter — to encourage people to check out their coverage options during the enrollment period, although his administration did send out regular email reminders to people with HealthCare.gov accounts.

Former President Barack Obama, meanwhile, recorded a video for Get America Covered, a nonprofit set up by former officials in his administration, and recently thanked in-person assisters by phone for their efforts — the kind of things he did while he was still president.