Over the weekend, government officials and outside IT contractors working on the online marketplace’s computer system made a software change that automatically gives people a Jan. 1 start date for their coverage as long as they enroll by 11:59 p.m. Christmas Eve.
The switch is the most recent rule change — some by government officials, and at least one by the insurance industry — as a milestone approaches for what has been a tumultuous three-month start of the long-awaited opportunity for Americans to buy new health plans under a 2010 law intended to reshape the nation’s health-care system.
For the first two months of the sign-up, a federal Web site, HealthCare.gov, had so many software and hardware defects that many consumers who wanted to select insurance were frustrated by error messages. And administration officials held off on a planned campaign to urge people to take advantage of the opportunity for new insurance.