White House officials announced Sunday that they have met their goal to improve the Healthcare.gov website for most users, inspiring hope among Democrats that attention can now focus on successes of the embattled health care law, USA Today reports.
"The bottom line is HealthCare.gov on Dec. 1 is night and day from where it was Oct. 1," said Jeffrey Zients, the president's appointee to fix the website's problems, USA Today reports. "The site is now stable and operating at its intended capacity at greatly improved performance."
When HealthCare.gov launched Oct. 1, scores of consumers complained that they had trouble logging onto the site, which allows people to compare private plan benefits and costs before buying an insurance policy.
Zients, tapped by the White House to make repairs, told reporters during a conference call Sunday that the system is now “reliably open for business.”
At the beginning of November, according to USA Today, Zients said the site had an "up time" of just 43 percent. As of Nov. 30, the site's up time was 95 percent.
Democrats greeted the news with optimism, while Republicans remained cautious.
“Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., said on CBS's Face the Nation that the updates were good news,” USA Today reports, “and compared the exchange's previous performance to a store advertising a sale but forgetting to unlock the doors.”
Read more at USA Today.