A recent survey from The Small Business Authority revealed that many entrepreneurs who supply employee benefits to their workers had yet to visit a state-based exchange or the federal marketplace, HealthCare.gov, since the rollout period began in October. But even if they had been inclined to take a peek at the website when it went online last month, it's unlikely they would have been able to access it, based on newly released details from the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
Calif. Rep. Darrell Issa, chairman of the oversight committee, recently announced that 24 hours prior to the launch of the federal health exchange website, it was only able to handle 1,100 users at a time. This was determined via the Affordable Care Act Daily Testing Bulletin, which listed the testing results for the Federally Facilitated Marketplace during a trial run.
"Ran performance testing overnight in IMP1B environment," the bulletin indicated. "Working with CGI Federal to tune the FFM environment to be able to handle maximum load.Currently we are able to reach 1,100 users before response time gets too high. CGI is making changes to configuration."
The bulletin also indicated that the ultimate goal of the testing was to be able to allow for 10,000 website visitors 72 hours after the site went live.
"There's no question that the volume was so high and continues to be so high that that has caused some delays," Jay Carney, White House press secretary, told the Washington Press Corp. the day after the rollout. "Those delays are, in our view, related to the high volume."
Some were able to get through, however. The House Oversight Committee revealed in a separate report released on Halloween that six people were able to enroll for coverage on Oct. 1 and nearly 190 signed up 24 hours later.
