The Spanish-language registration website for ObamaCare coverage is suffering from a variety of technical and linguistic problems after launching two months late.
CuidadoDeSalud.gov, the partner site to HealthCare.gov, contains grammatical and translation errors so severe that site users derided it as being written in “Spanglish.”
{mosads}”We end up having to translate it for them,” healthcare navigator Adrian Madriz told The Associated Press, referring to would-be enrollees who speak Spanish.
The online system was intended to be part of a major push to enroll uninsured Hispanics in ObamaCare’s new coverage options.
Roughly one in three uninsured people in the United States is Hispanic, according to the National Council of La Raza. The administration frequently describes its intention to lower this number through enactment of the Affordable Care Act.
But CuidadoDeSalud.gov experienced a long series of delays as problems at HealthCare.gov seized public attention in October.
The Spanish-language site finally launched at the beginning of December, but many users have struggled with the site’s functionality.
In one reported case, visitors hoping to compare plan options were sent to an English-only information page. In another, medical and insurance jargon was mistranslated as if by computer.
For their part, Republicans sought to capitalize on Hispanics’ frustration by inviting Spanish speakers to share their concerns about ObamaCare at GOP.com.
The Republican National Committee (RNC) ran digital and audio ads in Spanish starting Monday to coincide with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’s trip to Florida.