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Calif. won't extend canceled insurance policies despite presidential plea

The five-member board overseeing California's online insurance marketplace unanimously turned down President Obama's call to let insurers continue some health plans that don't meet the health law's requirements. Marketplace officials for Covered California also detailed who has signed up for coverage in the marketplace.

25 Nov 2013

First Edition: November 22, 2013

Today's headlines include reports that the Obama administration will push back 2015 Obamacare enrollment by a month, starting Nov. 15, 2014, instead of Oct. 15, 2014.

22 Nov 2013

HealthCare.gov: It's getting better all the time -- but system flaws, failures persist

Some states and insurers are contemplating alternatives if the website isn't ready by a critical December deadline. Meanwhile, just as Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was talking up the website in Florida, it crashed before her eyes.

22 Nov 2013

Oregon health law insurance exchange never worked, officials questioned on problems

Oregon residents are facing a state health exchange application deadline in two weeks to get coverage at the beginning of 2014, even as the online aspect of the marketplace still doesn't work -- and never did. In the meantime, Oregon lawmakers question officials on the exchanges problems and when they knew about them.

22 Nov 2013

How the health law is playing in the states

The Washington Post offers a table documenting how the overhaul is doing while USA Today chronicles successes and failures in three specific states.

22 Nov 2013

Report issued early warnings about HealthCare.gov risks

An analysis done in late March by McKinsey & Co. called attention to a number of trouble spots. Meanwhile, Politico details a "Red Team" report done by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that also sounded alarms.

20 Nov 2013

Some states see health plan enrollment surge

While the balky federal website has made enrollment difficult for residents of 36 states, tens of thousands of consumers are signing up for coverage in places like California, Connecticut and Kentucky, which have functional websites, reports the Los Angeles Times. Meanwhile, states and advocacy groups are tweaking their marketing. In Maryland, for instance, radio and TV ads encourage residents to call 211, rather than go to a website, to get coverage.

20 Nov 2013

First Edition: November 19, 2013

Today's headlines include news that Obama administration officials were warned about the possibility of website difficulties months ago by an outside consulting firm.

19 Nov 2013

What's the Healthcare.gov goal? 80 percent enrollment success rate

Obama administration officials are quietly hoping 80 percent of users will be able to enroll in health insurance plans on the federal health law's healthcare.gov website once it is fixed, The Washington Post reports. In the meantime, other website snags come to light -- a lack of Spanish-language materials and early alarm at some problems at rolling out the site.

19 Nov 2013

White House struggles to save health law

The Associated Press reports the president needs breakthroughs on three fronts: the cancellations and technology messes and the crisis in confidence among his own supporters. Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal reports the White House is probing how the rollout flopped despite what they had believed was sufficient planning.

19 Nov 2013

Viewpoints: Obamacare has resisted death throes before; website success stories from 3 governors; health law taking a toll on choice of doctors in Medicare Advantage

The first time Obamacare seemed finished, doomed, doornail-dead, the voters of Massachusetts played the would-be executioner. In January 2010, they sent a pickup-driving Republican to the Senate to fill Ted Kennedy's seat, apparently depriving the health care bill of its crucial 60th vote and sending Democrats scrambling for a Plan B. ... the deeper force at work, the reason that these near-death experiences keep happening, isn't a website or a broken presidential promise. It's a problem inherent to contemporary liberalism, which is that liberals' proudest achievement, the modern welfare state, tends to resist, corrupt and baffle their efforts at comprehensive reform (Ross Douthat, 11/16).

19 Nov 2013

First Edition: November 18, 2013

Today's headlines include reports about the political implications of the healthcare.gov difficulties as well continued coverage of reaction to President Barack Obama's policy cancellation fix.

18 Nov 2013

California shuts down 10 sites imitating state insurance marketplace

The California attorney general said her office shuttered 10 websites that had mimicked the state's official health insurance exchange "in order to lure consumers away from plans that provide the benefits of the Affordable Care Act."

16 Nov 2013

HHS health insurance enrollment figures far below targets

Only about a fourth of the enrollees signed up through the federal health exchange. The low initial sign up could set up a steep challenge for the health law.

15 Nov 2013

Congressional Democrats fuming at White House handling of health law

An increasing number of these lawmakers say they favor a legislative plan offered by Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana to allow people whose insurance has been canceled because of the law to keep it.

15 Nov 2013

What the health law's future holds: Fixing the website and everything after

News outlets report on the various ways the website issues and sign-up woes could be addressed, as well as what a variety of experts say about the global outlook for the health law.

15 Nov 2013

House oversight panel grills administration tech officials on website woes

The White House's chief technology officer, Todd Park, told the committee that teams are working aggressively to get the website functioning "for the vast majority" of consumers by the administration's Nov. 30 deadline. Meanwhile, a second panel heard testimony about website and security concerns.

15 Nov 2013

Obama faces trust issues as a result of health law woes

President Barack Obama -- and Democrats, by proxy -- face big political problems as a result of the botched rollout of the insurance website and the debunking of his pledge that Americans could keep their health plans if they liked them. Recent polls have Democrats and Republicans neck-and-neck in midterm election polls, and Fox News reports that half of voters think the president "knowingly lied" about the health law.

15 Nov 2013

California beating all other states in health law exchange enrollment

California is the bright spot in enrolling people in the health law's insurance exchanges -- beating even the federal Healthcare.gov in how many have signed up. Still, California's enrollment figures -- representing about a third of all signups around the nation -- mean less than 1 percent of uninsured Californians have signed up for plans.

15 Nov 2013

Both sides in the health law battle spin insurance sign-up figures

Health law advocates offered positive messages about the enrollment numbers released Wednesday by the Obama administration while the measure's critics pounced on the low figures and renewed calls for action.

14 Nov 2013