House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) released meeting notes on the rollout of the HealthCare.gov website on Monday.
The notes were taken during “war room” meetings with administration officials held shortly after the launch of the Affordable Care Act in October.
Enrollees were told to use paper applications when problems arose with the HealthCare.gov website even though paper applications wouldn’t expedite the process, Issa said.
“The same portal is used to determine eligibility no matter how the application is submitted (paper, online),” the Oct. 11 meeting notes said. “… The paper applications allow people to feel like they are moving forward in the process and provides another option – at the end of the day, we are all stuck in the same queue.”
As individuals who attempted to enroll through the website grew increasingly frustrated, ACA navigators told people to use “paper applications to protect (the navigator’s) reputations as people in the communities who can help, even though paper applications will not have a quicker result, necessarily,” according to Oct. 15 meeting notes.
During the war room meetings, the committee received information from 11 companies that were contracted to launch HealthCare.gov. One such company, Serco, had more than 3,000 paper applications submitted by mid October, according to Oct. 21 meeting notes.