Civic Register
| 10.12.18

Trump Plans Obamacare Site Shutdowns During Open Enrollment

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What’s the story?

  • The Trump administration plans to take the website for the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) offline for maintenance every Sunday during the upcoming enrollment period.
  • Healthcare.gov is scheduled to be down for a total of 60 hours during the open enrollment period, from 12 a.m. to 12 p.m. each Sunday from November first through December 15th.
  • Politicians and pundits on the left are accusing the Trump administration of attempting to undermine Obamacare, which the GOP unsuccessfully tried to repeal last year.
  • Democratic Reps. Barbara Lee of California and Mike Doyle of Pennsylvania both tweeted out their condemnations:
  • But a spokesperson for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said the planned maintenance is scheduled for periods of low traffic.
“Maintenance windows are regularly scheduled on healthcare.gov every year during Open Enrollment,” a CMS spokesperson said.
  • “Regular scheduled maintenance will continue to be planned for the lowest-traffic time periods on healthcare.gov, including Sunday mornings,” the spokesperson added. “Last year, healthcare.gov was down for significantly less than the full amount of time initially authorized.”
  • Eliot Fishman, senior director of health policy at the liberal health-care advocacy group Families USA, pushed back on this explanation, telling The Hill, "CMS is clearly at pains to provide assurances of its benign intent in this maintenance schedule.”
  • Fishman added:
"But with the president continuing to regularly brag about gutting the ACA and with the administration refusing to defend the law in court, there is reason to be concerned about a schedule that takes the federal marketplace down for long stretches over weekends during holiday season. We’ll be watching this closely."

What do you think?

Is this “maintenance” or “sabotage”? Do you support the ACA? Do you want the GOP to revisit a possible Obamacare repeal after the midterms? Take action above, then share your thoughts below.

—Josh Herman