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Survey: 4 In 10 Say California’s Obamacare Exchange Isn’t Working

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The country’s largest state Obamacare exchange may still be plagued by technical problems, according to a new survey.

Almost four in 10 Californians report that Covered California, which accounts for more Obamacare customers than any other single state, is not working well or isn’t working at all, found a study from the Public Policy Institute of California, a San Francisco-based think tank.

Fifty-two percent of people reported that the website is working well or fairly well; in May of this year, a similar survey reported that 54 percent believed the exchange was performing up to standards.

Covered California had its own share of glitches during the first enrollment period. Several editions of in-network physicians were removed from the website after customers discovered that the information was incorrect. And just weeks before open enrollment began again in November, a flaw in the system halted enrollments and any coverage changes entirely, Sacramento Business Journal reported.

Some of those problems have continued since open enrollment began Nov. 15. The problems reportedly blocked many insurance brokers from making edits to existing insurance enrollments.

But according to the exchange, they’ve still managed to sign up more new customers than this time last year. During the first open enrollment period, the exchange signed up 1.2 million customers in all. The exchange reported that during the first three days of open enrollment, 11,357 people chose private plans; in Oct. 2013, the exchange broken 10,000 applications after 15 days.

Even in California, which has fully bought into the Affordable Care Act, building its own state-run exchange and adopting the Medicaid expansion, public opinion on the health-care law is split. Forty-six percent have a positive opinion of Obamacare, according to the survey, while 43 percent have an unfavorable opinion.

While that’s a small margin of victory in California, it’s markedly more positive than in the country as a whole. Approval of the law nationwide has fallen to a new all-time low of 37 percent, according to a Gallup survey taken just before the second open enrollment period began. Notably, that’s even worse than the previous record of 38 percent disapproval, at the height of HealthCare.gov’s and many state-run exchanges’ malfunctions. (RELATED: Obamacare Approval Plummets To New Low)

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Sarah Hurtubise