Politics

Bad news: Obamacare ‘navigator’ program is dependent upon a functioning HealthCare.gov website

Matt K. Lewis Senior Contributor
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HealthCare.gov has a new look. The ObamaCare girl is gone — replaced by a new image that stresses the “4 ways to get marketplace coverage.”

The only problem? None of the options seem to work without the website.

Last Wednesday, we documented that the 1-800 number doesn’t work (CNN later confirmed this). Now, it appears the “navigators” (the face-to-face people who assist with enrollment) are equally impotent — without a functioning website. (The navigator option was ostensibly set up for people who aren’t computer literate, and might need a little help navigating the website.)

This was confirmed by two different “navigators” in two different states to Dave Petno, an Ohio-based Employee Benefits Consultant and Certified Health Care Reform Professional who has been documenting the system’s challenges.

During a conversation with an Enroll Virginia navigator, Petno specifically asked: “If HealthCare.gov is not working, what would we do?”

The navigator answered: “You can’t make plan selection without HealthCare.gov.”

Listen below:

During another phone conversation with a navigator who works at an Ohio food bank, Petno was told: “Our training was focused on using HealthCare.gov to do all of the things we were trained on.”

Listen below:

Matt K. Lewis