Obamacare: The User Experience

The Affordable Care Act is different things to different people: It’s a landmark law that will improve the lives of millions of Americans. Or it’s the single greatest usurpation of liberty ever.

It’s now also a website. Many of the 7 million uninsured people expected to seek coverage under the law this year will form their first—and lasting—impressions of Obamacare when they go online to pick a plan from the state and federal health insurance marketplaces, or exchanges, that opened on Oct. 1. That means a lot is riding on how well those sites treat them. The ACA has survived dozens of Republican attempts to unravel it, a presidential election in part about repealing it, and a Supreme Court challenge to nullify it. But the surest way to failure is if Americans have a crummy experience when they try to sign up for it.