Sunday Data Glitch Adds To Obamacare Rollout Probems
A main data center for enrolling the uninsured in Obamacare went down Sunday causing problems in all 50 states.
The data center operated by Verizon’s Terremark experienced a connectivity issue that caused it to shut down, affecting the federal government’s already problem-plagued online marketplace Healthcare.gov and similar sites operated by 14 states and the District of Columbia, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
Administration and company officials could not say how long it would take to fix the connectivity problem…
Without the hub, consumers are unable to apply online for coverage or determine their eligibility for federal subsidies to help pay for insurance premiums. On Saturday, Sebelius praised the hub’s ability to perform complex calculations in quick time as an example of a successful segment of the system.
HHS spokeswoman Joanne Peters said the outage was affecting enrollment in all 50 states, as well as Terremark customers not connected with the marketplaces. She said the data center’s network connectivity went down during planned maintenance to replace a failed networking component.
A spokesman for Verizon said the problem would be fixed “as soon as possible.”
