Server for Md. Health-Care Exchange Taken Down after Gov. O’Malley Declares Site ‘Functional for Most Citizens’

Oregon isn’t the only state still having problems with its health-care exchange website; Maryland’s site went down Monday despite a previous declaration from Governor Martin O’Malley (D) that it was finally “functional for most citizens.”

On Saturday, O’Malley said that the website was not “glitch-free” and wasn’t “perfect by any means,” but called it “functional for most users.” He blamed persistent technical problems on a federal hub that the site has to interface with and touted a list of nine “major issues” that had been rectified with the site.

Two days later, however, a server was manually taken down and consumers flooded the exchange’s call center seeking help, according to exchange spokeswoman Dori Henry.

The exchange has seen more than its share of setbacks, including the resignation of its previous director after she took a Caribbean vacation in November, even as the site struggled. Her replacement, Carolyn Quattrocki, is the subject of a $1 million lawsuit unrelated to the exchange.