Michelle Murillo, wtop.com
WASHINGTON — The Maryland Health Benefit Exchange has been fraught with failures, but it’s also being called a success.
One of the biggest problems has been the website. It was billed as an easily accessible portal where people in Maryland could enroll, but quite often, the website wouldn’t process enrollments. That caused thousands to overwhelm the hotlines and centers in the days before the March 31 deadline as they tried to access the system.
The website was deemed so broken that the Maryland Health Exchange Board voted on Tuesday to toss it out and start from scratch, instead of trying to fix it.
Nevertheless, despite the website failures, the Maryland Health Connection says they still consider the program an overall success.
Officials had set a goal of enrolling 260,000 people by the March 31 deadline. A total of 295,077 ultimately enrolled.
For those who tried to sign up, but ran into technical issues with the website, the deadline to enroll has been extended to April 18.
To sign up, visit MarylandHealthConnection.gov, call the hotline -1-855-642-8572, or go to a Connector Organization Center for personal help enrolling. A map of those centers is also available on the website.
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