It is no secret that the Obamacare website has been causing millions of Americans a great deal of worry and stress in the past months, especially in the freelancing community. As more and more of the unemployed are looking towards the internet as a means to make a living wage, successful freelancers know the importance of organization and planning ahead.
So, it comes as no surprise to most business leaders and freelancers that an Obamacare filing extension was imminent. They saw it coming months ago. By 2 pm EST yesterday, the Healthcare.gov website saw an increase in traffic of over 5 times the previous week’s numbers. Almost 1 million visitors were attempting to finalize their insurance options amid last-minute Christmas shopping and confirming eleventh-hour travel plans. As a result, the Obama Administration nearly crashed once again, forcing an extension of the deadline to today at midnight, Christmas Eve.
Bloomerg is reporting that the website has been “band-aided together to get it working” well enough to avoid another website crash, but this not instilling enough consumer confidence in the overall program as yet. This allows Americans in 36 states an extra 24 hours to sign up and avoid the penalties. Fox News is reporting that this extension is being “downplayed” by the Administration, hoping to avoid even more negative publicity about the instability of the program, the website, and public opinion.
This is all coming at the end of the 5th year of Obama’s presidency, one that has seen a decrease in unemployment figures which many attribute to the rise in freelancing . Some economists estimate that 1 in 3 American’s are now offering freelancing services, usually online, for either part-time or full-time paychecks. Paystream.com estimates this number to grow significantly in 2014 and beyond. Even the Toronto Star predicts that 50% of the American workforce will consist of freelancing professionals by the year 2020. Freelancing sites like Fiverr.com report that over 15% of their sellers are now making a living wage from thier site.
As these numbers continue to grow, freelancers are becoming increasingly concerned with the constant struggles of the Obamacare website and the lack of cohesiveness in goals between the President and Congress. Mobile marketing is on the rise, and traditional “brick and mortar” businesses are looking towards reliable and consistent freelancing services to minimize their overhead. These businesses are forced to adapt to an ever fluctuating marketplace that has been struggling since the first days of the Obama Administration.
A poorly running Obamacare website is not instilling a great deal of confidence among business leaders and freelancing professionals, people whose sole financial income would be instantly eradicated if this were to occur on their watch.
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