Maryland
BALTIMORE (AP) - The opening of Maryland's online health benefit exchange has been delayed by problems with the exchange's website.
Rebecca Pearce, executive director of the Maryland Health Benefit Exchange, said some opening-day glitches were anticipated.
Despite the delay, supporters of the health care overhaul cheered the first day of a six-month open-enrollment period.
Katie League, an outreach and enrollment manager at Health Care for the Homeless in Baltimore, used paper applications to register people in the morning. She says she isn't surprised of the opening delay because there are a lot of moving parts. She says Tuesday is like the start of football pre-season. She says "not every quarterback is ready on the first day of preseason."
Delaware
NEWARK, Del. (AP) - Delaware officials are hoping to enroll more than a third of the state's 90,000 uninsured residents in the state's new health insurance exchange as open enrollment began.
But even as open enrollment got underway Tuesday, officials were urging patience. People using a portal on the state's new health care reform website that links to the federal computer system for enrolling people in the exchange found delays as heavy traffic inundated the system.
Delaware officials also were still awaiting final certification for many of the marketplace guides being hired to help people learn about and enroll in the health care exchange.
In addition to people enrolling in Delaware's exchange, officials say up to 30,000 residents will be eligible for health care coverage starting Jan. 1 under Medicaid expansion.
