With fixes to HealthCare.gov yet to be completed, Democratic New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen introduced a bill on Wednesday that would delay the individual mandate for at least two months, giving people extra time to sign up for health insurance.
Right now, the enrollment period runs until March 31, after which point, individuals will be fined if they do not have insurance. But a month and a half after the enrollment website went live, it still is not running smoothly, hindering attempts to purchase insurance.
The administration has said it hopes to get have the website fully functional, or at least fully usable, by the end of November, which would effectively mean a two-month delay in the launch of the enrollment website.
Shaheen’s bill would, accordingly, push back the enrollment deadline for at least another two months.
“It’s not fair to penalize people for not having health insurance because of a broken website,” Shaheen said in a statement Wednesday. “People need adequate time to consider their available options and sign up for health insurance and the ongoing technical issues aren’t allowing that. As ongoing problems with HealthCare.gov cut into that time frame and are hindering the enrollment process, giving people more time to sign up is a matter of common sense.”
There are indications that the website will still not be functioning properly two months after it’s launch date: On Wednesday, Todd Park, the White House’s Chief Technology Officer, declined to make any declarative statements about when the website would be functional, saying only: “The team’s working really hard to meet that goal. That’s all I can say right now.” A Washington Post report Wednesday cited a source familiar with the project saying that the website was unlikely to be fixed by Nov. 30.
In that case, Shaheen’s bill would push the enrollment deadline back even further.
According to a press release from Shaheen’s office, Democratic Sens. Mary Landrieu, Mark Udall, Jeff Merkley, and Dianne Feinstein are co-sponsoring the bill. Landrieu is sponsoring her own bill to smooth over some of the fall out from the health-care law’s implementation.
Several other Senators have filed bills to delay the fines on individuals who fail to sign up for coverage. West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin proposed a one-year delay for the individual mandate. Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio sponsored a bill that would delay it until six months after the website was fully functional.
There has been a growing number of Democratic voices suggesting or supporting fixes to the health-care law, as new problems emerged after implementation began on Oct. 1. Landrieu is sponsoring a bill to allow people who like their plans, to keep their plans — as President Barack Obama promised — by grandfathering in any plan in which people were enrolled in on or before Dec. 31, 2013, regardless of whether that plan complies with Obamacare.
Like Shaheen, Landrieu is up for re-election next year, as are a number of Democrats who signed on to her bill: Merkley, North Carolina Sen. Kay Hagan, and Arkansas Sen. Mark Pryor. Landrieu, Hagan, and Pryor face tough re-election campaigns in red states. Manchin and Feinstein have also signed on to Landrieu’s bill.