ACA (Obamacare) Federal Marketplace - Expect Major Open Season Problems

The implementation of the Federal Marketplace web site used by roughly 5.5 million people to purchase health insurance in 2013 and early 2014 was plagued by problems. Open season during which people with existing exchange policies can view and change their insurance plans begins on 11/15/14. Additionally, eligible individuals who don't have existing medical policies can file applications and shop for new medical insurance.

I expect that most people assume that after the problems encountered with the implementation and after expending about $200 million to fix the problems and expand capacity that open season will go smoothly. However, it is likely that the Federal Marketplace open season web site performance will experience major problems and be more problematic than the implementation.

Due to concerns about the heartbleed virus, healthcare.gov reset all users' passwords in April 2014. Normally, a password reset would force a user to select a new password after they logged in with their existing password. What appears to have happened is that healthcare.gov disabled everyone's account.

I have tried to help several people access their accounts unsuccessfully. Using the "Forgot my password" option on the login screen does not work. I've have spent hours on the phone with the Marketplace help desk and they have, on multiple occasions, unlocked the accounts and emailed a temporary password which has not worked. All of the Marketplace agents have been very polite and very helpful but have not been able to resolve the issue and their documentation is incomplete and in many cases incorrect. As an example, after all efforts to resolve the problem failed they told me to create a new account using the same email address registered with the original account assuring me that the new account would be able to access the information in the old account. This didn't work with an error message advising me that you can not use the same email address for 2 accounts. Another agent told me to create a new account with a different email address and then, after logging in with the new credentials, to use the 'find my application' link which also did not work.

The bottom line is that when open season begins that there may be millions of people not able to access their accounts and the help desk will be buried with login problems.