How Convenient

The exchanges opened up yesterday for next year's insurance.

In Minnesota, the voice lines were shut down by a massive influx robocalls:

The health insurance shopping season got off to a rough start Tuesday with technical difficulties at the MNsure website, complaints over long waits at the health exchange call center and a claim from DFL Gov. Mark Dayton that MNsure had been targeted by robocallers trying to tie up phone lines.

The troubles came on a day when MNsure hoped to dismiss any lingering doubts about an IT system that outraged many consumers during its balky launch in 2013.

With health insurance premiums jumping by more than 50 percent on average next year, MNsure is the only source in Minnesota for federal tax credits that could blunt the impact of rate spikes. State officials told shoppers to buy early, because caps on enrollment in most health plans mean that most insurance options could disappear altogether.

Many MNsure users successfully enrolled in coverage, but others complained of error messages, locked accounts and uncertainty about whether they’d successfully enrolled in a plan. By late morning, a key section of the MNsure website was down for about 30 minutes, along with portions of websites at nearly 70 other state agencies.

The MNsure call center opened at 8 a.m., and shoppers were complaining within a few hours about long wait times. DFL Gov. Mark Dayton told reporters that the state’s IT division found the waits were being ballooned by automated call systems.

“Somebody’s trying to jam the call center, and making robocalls to try to snafu the thing — which is deplorable,” Dayton said. “They’ve identified that culprit, and are acting … to exclude them from the system.”

The term for this is ratf%$#ing, a term originated often used by Nixon's dirty trick squad, of which Roger Stone, ratf%$#er for Trump, was a prominent member.

This is no innocent technical error.