The federal website used by consumers in Arkansas and 38 other states to enroll in health insurance will be taken down for maintenance for up to 12 hours on most Sundays during the annual sign-up period that begins Nov. 1, federal officials announced Friday.
According to Kaiser Health News, an independent arm of the Menlo Park., Calif.-based Kaiser Family Foundation, the officials said healthcare.gov will be offline from midnight Saturday to noon Sunday during all but the last weekend of the open enrollment period, which ends Dec. 15.
The website will also be down during the first night of open enrollment, the news service reported. It said the announcement was made during an online conference with community groups that help people enroll.
In an email to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, a spokesman for the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said such outages are "regularly scheduled on healthcare.gov every year during open enrollment," and happen during times when traffic is low.
"This year is no different," the spokesman said. "The maintenance schedule was provided in advance this year to accommodate requests from certified application assisters."
Established as part of the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the website allows people to shop for coverage and apply for tax-credit subsidies to help pay for it.
More than 54,000 Arkansans were covered on plans offered through the site as of Sept. 15.
J.R. Davis, a spokesman for Gov. Asa Hutchinson, said he doesn't think the shutdowns are aimed at discouraging enrollment.
"I think this is an attempt to monitor [the website], to make sure it remains functional," he said. "What you don't want to do is have multiple shutdowns during the week," he said.
The open enrollment period is the time each year when people who buy coverage on their own, rather than through an employer, can sign up for coverage, through the site or directly with insurers, or change plans.
The sign-up period is also when the more than 280,000 low-income Arkansans covered by Medicaid-funded plans under Arkansas Works can change plans.
The outages won't affect those Arkansans because they sign up through a state-run website, insureark.org.
Next year, however, many Arkansans now covered under Arkansas Works are expected to seek coverage through healthcare.gov if the state receives federal approval to limit eligibility for the Medicaid program to people with incomes of up to the poverty level, instead of the current 138 percent of the poverty level.
The 60,000 Arkansans who would be affected would qualify for 60-day special enrollment periods allowing them to sign up through the federal site.
Although healthcare.gov often malfunctioned when enrollment first began in 2013, outreach workers and others have said most people in recent years have been able to sign up without any problems.
The announcement on Friday came just over three weeks after President Donald Trump's administration said it would cut spending on advertising aimed at encouraging people to enroll from $100 million to $10 million and on outreach workers from $62.5 million to $36.8 million.
Marquita Little, health care policy director for Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, said she hopes the scheduled outages aren't part of a pattern.
"I think our concern would generally be just ensuring that there actually is a valid reason for [the shutdowns] to occur, or is it just a continued attempt to undermine the insurance marketplace," Little said.
"If it's the latter, it's unfair to the families who are coming there seeking coverage."
Arkansas funds its own outreach programs through the Arkansas Health Insurance Marketplace, which certifies the plans sold in the state through healthcare.gov and helps people enroll. The marketplace's operations are funded with a fee the agency collects from insurers.
Mark Meadors, a member of the marketplace's board of directors, said he doesn't think the shutdowns will keep people from enrolling.
"The majority of your people are going to sign up during the week," he said.
Metro on 09/23/2017