The Obama Administration Has Extended A Key Obamacare Deadline
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said Friday that people signing up for coverage that starts on Jan. 1 now have until Dec. 23 to sign up for the coverage. That's an eight-day extension from the previous Dec. 15 deadline.
CMS spokeswoman Julie Bataille said that the move was made in consultation with insurers. It's an important one for people who have been unable to sign up for health insurance under the law due to the dysfunctional federal HealthCare.gov website.
Jeff Zients, the official charged with leading the "tech surge" to fix HealthCare.gov, said the administration is still on track to meet an end-of-November goal to have the website work "smoothly" for the "vast majority" of users. Still, it experienced at least two unplanned outages this week.