Issue link: http://www.epageflip.net/i/287883
By Ricardo Alonso- Zaldivar Associated Press WASHINGTON » A f lood of last-minute applicants rushed to sign up for health i nsu ra nce on Monday, deadline day for President Barack Obama's health care law, with more than 125,000 people at a time using the fragile system despite a new spate of intermittent ills. Supporters of the over - haul fanned out across the country in a final dash to sign up uninsured Ameri- cans. The HealthCare.gov website, which was receiv- ing 1.5 million visitors a day last week, had recorded about 1.2 million through noon Monday. The website stumbled early in the day — out of service for nearly four hours as technicians patched a software bug. The system came back up shortly be - fore 9 a.m. EDT, then an- other hiccup in early after- noon temporarily kept new applicants from signing up. The system, overwhelmed by computer problems when launched last fall, has been working much better in re - cent months and officials said it was operating at full capacity on Monday. At Chicago's Norwegian American Hospital, people began lining up shortly af - ter 7 a.m. to get help sign- ing up for subsidized private health insurance. Lucy Martinez, an unem- ployed single mother of two boys, said she'd previously tried to enroll at a clinic in another part of the city but there was always a problem. She'd wait and wait and they wouldn't call her name, or they would ask her for pa - perwork that she was told earlier she didn't need, she said. Her diabetic mother would start sweating so they'd have to leave. She's heard "that this would be better here," said Martinez, adding that her mot he r su cce ss fu ll y si gn ed up Sunday at a different lo - cation. "Organizations across the country have been mo- bilizing for this moment," said Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, an advocacy group that has supported the health care overhaul from its inception. "I think we are going to see huge numbers of people get in vo lv ed ." At St. Francis Hospi - tal in Wilmington, Del., en- rollment counselor Hubert Worthen plunged into a long day. "I got my energy drink," he said. "This is epic, man." At a Houston commu - nity center, there were im- migrants from Ethiopia, Ne- pal, Eritrea, Somalia, Iraq, Iran and other conflict-torn areas, many of them trying anew after failing to com - plete applications previ- ously. In addition to needing help with the actual enroll- ment, they needed to wait for interpreters. Many had taken a day off from work, hoping to meet the deadline. The White House and other supporters of the law were hoping for an en - rollment surge that would push sign-ups in the new health insurance markets to around 6.5 million peo - ple. That's halfway between a revised goal of 6 million and the original target of 7 million. The first goal was scaled back after the federal website's disastrous launch last fall, which kept it offline during most of October. Th e in su ra nc e ma rk et s — or exchanges — offer subsidized private health insurance to people who don't have access to cover - age through their jobs. The federal government is tak- ing the lead in 36 states, while 14 other states plus Washington, D.C., are run- ning their own enrollment websites. New York, running its own site, reported more than 812,000 had signed up by Sunday morning, nearly 100,000 of them last week. However, it's unclear wh at t ho se n um be rs m ay mean. T h e a d m i n i s t r a t i o n hasn't said how many of the 6 million people nation - ally who had signed up be- fore the weekend ultimately closed the deal by paying their first month's premi- ums. Also unknown is how many were previously un- insured — the real test of Obama's health care over- haul. In addition, the law ex- pands coverage for low-in- come people through Med- icaid, but only about half the states have agreed to imple- ment that option. Cheering on the deadline- day sign-up effort, Health and Human Services Sec - retary Kathleen Sebelius planned to spend much of the day Monday working out of the department's TV stu - dio, conducting interviews by satellite with stations around the country. Though March 31 was the last day officially to sign up, millions of people are poten - tially eligible for extensions granted by the administra- tion. Those include people who had begun enrolling by the deadline but didn't fin - ish, perhaps because of er- rors, missing information or website glitches. The government says it will ac- cept paper applications un- til April 7 and take as much time as necessary to handle unfinished cases on Health- Care.gov. Rules may vary in states running their own in- surance marketplaces. The administration is also offering special exten- sions to make up for all sorts of problems that might have kept people from getting en- rolled on time: Natural di- sasters. Domestic abuse. Website malfunctions. Er- rors by insurance compa- nies. Mistakes by applica- tion counselors. To seek a special enroll- ment period, contact the federal call center, at 1-855- 889-4325, or the state mar- ketplace and explain what happened. It's on the honor system. If the extension is approved, that brings an - other 60 days to enroll. Those who still don't get health insurance run the risk that the Internal Rev - enue Service will fine them next year for remaining un- insured. It remains to be seen how aggressively the penalties called for in the law are enforced. Also, the new markets don't have a monopoly on health insurance. People not already covered by an em - ployer or a government pro- gram can comply with the insurance mandate by buy- ing a policy directly from an insurer. They'll just have to pay the full premium them - selves, although in a few states there may be an ex- ception to that rule as well. Supporters of the law held their breath early Mon- day when the website was taken down. Administration spokes- man Aaron Albright said the site undergoes "regular nightly maintenance" dur- ing off-peak hours and the period was extended be- cause of a "technical prob- lem." He did not say what the problem was, but an of- ficial statement called it "a software bug" unrelated to application volume. In Oakton, Va., enroll - ment counselor Rachel Klein said she noticed the website was running slowly. "We all came into it un - derstanding that today was going to be challenging," said Klein. "We're all re- lieved that there's going to be a little extra time for peo- ple." OBAmAcARe Deadline dash: Health care sign-ups amid glitches AssociAted Press Lisa Valera and her husband Manuel sign up for obamacare at the community service society, Monday in New York. Associated Press WASHINGTON » New re- search is boosting hopes that weight-loss surgery can put some patients' diabetes into remission for years and per - haps in some cases, for good. Doctors on Monday gave longer results from a land- mark study showing that stomach-reducing opera- tions are better than medi- cations for treating "diabe- sity," the deadly duo of obe- sity and Type 2 diabetes. Millions of Americans have this and can't make enough insulin or use what they do make to process food. Many experts were skep - tical that the benefits seen after a year would last. Now, three-year results show an even greater advan - tage for surgery. Blood-sugar levels were normal in 38 percent and 25 percent of two groups given surgery, but in only 5 percent of those treated with medi - cations. The results are "quite re- markable" and could revo- lutionize care, said one in- dependent expert, Dr. Rob- ert Siegel, a cardiologist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Cen- ter in Los Angeles. "No one drea med, at least I didn't," that obesity surgery could have such broad effects long before it caused patients to lose weight, he said. Some pa - tients were able to stop us- ing insulin a few days after surgery. At three years, "more than 90 percent of the sur - gical patients required no insulin," and nearly half had needed it at the start of the study, said its leader, Dr. Philip Schauer of the Cleve - land Clinic. In contrast, in- sulin use rose in the medica- tion group, from 52 percent at the start to 55 percent at three years. The results were reported Monday at an American Col - lege of Cardiology confer- ence in Washington. They also were published online by the New England Journal of Medicine. ReSeARcH Surgery helps obese diabetics Associated Press Love ca n sometimes break a heart but mar- riage seems to do it a lot of good. A study of more than 3.5 million Americans finds that married people are less likely than singles, divorced or widowed folks to suffer any type of heart or blood vessel problem. This was true at any age, for women as well as for men, and regardless of other heart disease risk fac - tors they had such as high cholesterol or diabetes, re- searchers found. "It might be that if some- one is married, they have a spouse who encourages them to take better care of themselves," said Dr. Jeffrey Berger, a preventive cardiol - ogist at NYU Langone Med- ical Center. This is the largest look at marriage and heart health, said Dr. Carlos Alviar, a cardiology fellow who led the study with Berger. Pre - vious studies mostly com- pared married to single peo- ple and lacked information on divorced and widowed ones. Or they just looked at heart attacks, whereas this one included a full range from clogged arteries and abdominal aneurysms to stroke risks and circulation problems in the legs. Researchers used health questionnaires that people filled out when they sought various types of tests in com - munity settings around the country from an Ohio com- pany, Life Line Screening Inc. Some of these screen- ing tests, for various types of cancer and other diseases or conditions, are not rec- ommended by leading med- ical groups, but people can still get them and pay for them themselves. The study authors have no financial ties to the com - pany and are not endors- ing this type of screening, Berger said. Life Line gave its data to the Society of Vascular Surgery and New York University to help pro- mote research. The results are from peo- ple who sought screening from 2003 through 2008. Their average age was 64, nearly two-thirds were fe - male and 80 percent were white. They gave informa- tion on smoking, diabetes, family history, obesity, exer- cise and other factors, and researchers had blood pres- sure and other health mea- sures. The study found: • Married people had a 5 percent lower risk of any cardiovascular disease com - pared to single people. Wid- owed people had a 3 percent greater risk of it and di- vorced people, a 5 percent greater risk, compared to married folks. • Marriage seemed to do the most good for those under age 50; they had a 12 percent lower risk of heart- related disease than single people their age. —Smoking, a major heart risk, was highest among di - vorced people and lowest in widowed ones. Obesity was most common in those sin- gle and divorced. Widowed people had the highest rates of high blood pressure, dia- betes and inadequate exer- cise. Researchers don't know how long any study par- ticipants were married or how recently they were di- vorced or became widowed. But the results drive home the message that a person's heart risks can't be judged by physical measures alone — social factors and stress also matter, said Dr. Vera Bittner, a cardiologist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She heads the heart dis - ease prevention committee of the American College of Cardiology. The study re- sults were released on Fri- day ahead of a weekend pre- sentation at the group's an- nual meeting in Washington. RelATIONSHIpS Study indicates that married folks have fewer heart problems AssociAted Press Married people under the age of 50 have a 12 percent lower risk of heart-related disease than single people their age. www.redbluff.mercy.org /veincare Get a Leg up on Your Health With the St. Elizabeth Center for Vein Care. Call anytime 888-628-1948 for a referral for varicose vein treatment options redbluff.mercy.org/veincare 100 Jackson Street, Red Bluff (530) 529-1220 First 50 new members $ 25 .00 month Call or Come In for details www.redbluff.mercy.org redbluff.mercy.org Childbirth Class (4/3-5/8) 6:30pm-8:30pm 4/3 Columba 888-628-1948 redbluff.mercy.org/classes_and_events Community Basic Life Support 6:00pm-10:00pm 4/8 Columba 888-628-1948 redbluff.mercy.org/classes_and_events Grief Support Group 3:00pm-5:00pm 4/3 Coyne Center 528-4207 Waterbirth Class 6:30pm-8:30pm 4/9 Columba 888-628-1948 redbluff.mercy.org/classes_and_events Sees Easter Candy Sale April 15, 17, 18 Gift Shop 736-1326 Thailand Fine Jewelry April 9-10 7-5 pm Main Hall 736-1326 Tough Enough To Wear Pink April 20 Fairgrounds 527-1000 Lic#8981 Lic#7575 20 Antelope Blvd. Red Bluff 530-527-2403 ears4u@outlook.com March Spring Cleaning Bring your hearing aids in for a FREE cleaning Check out our website at www.myears4u.com HEALTH » redbluffdailynews.com Tuesday, April 1, 2014 » More At FACEBOOK.COM/RBDAILYNEWS ANd TWITTER.COM/REDBLUFFNEWS A4