So far this month, many people have visited HealthCare.org attempting ot check out their coverage options under the Affordable Care Act.  For the majority, frustration has been a common refrain.  Completing the application, let alone setting up an account, has been about as easy as trying to get into a Los Angeles A-list nightclub on a Friday night.  Always up for a challenge, the Tribune gave it a try.  Here’s what we learned.

Pulling up
We gathered our personal and family information, a pay stub, and had  human resources fill out the Employer Coverage Tool.  The tool includes the employer identification number and employee health insurance policy information and pricing.  Anyone can shop the Marketplace, whether or not they currently have coverage.
At HealthCare.org, we clicked on “Get Started.”  We skipped signing up for an email account at one of four different commercial host sites.

Getting a foot in the door
It took a few hours to simply set up a personal account.  In that time, the website crashed when we tried to establish security questions and answers, and was sent back to the first page each time.  One of our answers contained a space, but when we chose one word answers, we successfully created an account, received the verification email, and tried to sign into our account.  
No luck.  After signing in and out several times to no avail, we clicked on the link, “trouble logging in?”  
A list of suggestions was offered.  After restarting the browser, we cleared the computer cache and cookies and restarted the computer.  Still no luck.  We followed our browser’s instructions for making sure we were set up to accept cookies, and restarted the computer again, logged in, and were finally successful--for a little while.  We agreed to the terms and conditions, and thought we were on our way.  

Jamie tries to help
After indicating we wanted to find out what options were available in the Marketplace, we went to the next screen, which remained blank.  The only option at that point was to begin a live chat session with an Health Insurance Marketplace agent called Jamie.  
At first, Jamie though I was having trouble logging into my account, and explained that there were many people trying to use the website at that time, which was causing glitches for others.  He assured us someone was working to improve the site, and suggested I call the toll free phone number to get help.
I pressed Jamie though.  I explained I had already successfully logged in.  Jamie suggested I check and make sure my computer’s pop-up blocker was disabled.  He provided instructions for how to do this on Firefox, which I was using at that time.  
It still didn’t help, so after once again telling me help was available over the phone, Jamie suggested I use a different browser.  I opened healthcare.gov in Internet Explorer, made sure the pop-up blocker was disabled, and logged in.  Now, all the screens worked--for awhile.  I thanked Jamie and continued.  
I began entering information on the online application.  But a few minutes later, some of the answers about my family members seemed to cause the program to shut down again.  Already two-hours into the process, it was time to stop.  

Brandy says ‘no cutting’
We returned to the experiment the next morning, and after logging in, saw that some of the answers we’d submitted the day before needed to be reentered.  We contacted Live Chat again.  This time, Brandy was ready to help us.  While entering family information, the program froze again, and would not allow us to go forward or skip ahead.  
Brandy once again told us about the high usage causing glitches, and again suggested we log out and log in again, or we could call the toll-free number, but we weren’t ready to give up yet.  After all, it was the morning and we were fresh.  We tried  a few times to get logged in, but were unsuccessful.

Kimberlyn says 'no go'
At this point, we finally broke down and called the phone number.  There wasn’t anything left to do, after all.  We rang through to Kimberlyn, who was happy to help.  We gave her our username and password, and she put us on hold while she attempted to pull up our account.  We waited about six minutes.  
“I’m sorry, but I’m unable to find your application because our website is experiencing high usage at this time,” Kimberlyn said.  What about Brandy’s assurance that our agent would be able to pull up our application and continue where we left off over the phone?  Apparently, it wasn’t meant to work out that way.  
Kimberlyn suggested we try calling back or trying to log in again sometime when usage wasn’t so high--either before 6 a.m., or after 8 p.m. Central time.  She apologized again, and we said goodbye.

Old way still the best
The time had come for turning to our next option.  We went back to the website and printed a copy of the seven page application and filled it out by hand.  It took about 20 minutes, give or take, stuffed it in an envelope and put a stamp on it.   In a few weeks, we should receive a list of options to select from.  A small price to pay.