The federal health insurance exchange will be shut down for 12 hours during every Sunday in the approaching open enrollment period except one, Kaiser Health News reports.
From 12 a.m. to 12 p.m. each Sunday between Nov. 1 and Dec. 15 — minus Dec. 10 — the site will shut down for maintenance, HHS officials said. Federal officials released planned shutdowns Friday during a webinar for groups who help individuals enroll in coverage through the federal exchange, HealthCare.gov.
In addition, HHS will shut down HealthCare.gov overnight Nov. 1, the first day of open enrollment.
An anonymous CMS spokesperson told Kaiser Health News, "Maintenance outages are regularly scheduled on healthcare.gov every year during open enrollment. This year is no different."
The publication notes during the 2015 and 2016 open enrollment periods, which were 90-day enrollment sessions, the exchange was online 99.9 percent of the time. The Trump administration will have the site online 93 percent of the time during a shorter, 45-day enrollment period. Including the Sunday shutdowns, Kaiser Health News projects HealthCare.gov will operate for an equivalent of 42 days this year.
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