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Gansler Calls On Brown To Explain Exchange Woes

SILVER SPRING, Md. (WJZ) -- There's controversy over Maryland's health care exchange website and who's to blame for its many problems. The launch was three months ago and thousands of people still haven't signed up.

Christie Ileto has the latest on the fight.

Maryland's Health Exchange website was supposed to give health coverage to the state's uninsured but the flawed website let many down when it went live in the fall.

"I tried the local site; the local site was not working," said one person.

Three months later, new numbers show as many as 162,000 people are on track for coverage through the website. The goal is 260,000 by the end of March.

The site is slowly getting people insured, but critics want to know who dropped the ball.

"We're all looking for answers here as to what happened, how they got into this mess in the first place," said Attorney General Doug Gansler.

Monday, Gansler says Lt. Governor Anthony Brown--tasked with overseeing the rollout--needs to explain what went wrong.

This week, state leaders in Annapolis are considering emergency measures to enroll those who couldn't get health plans on the troubled website.

"What we saw on Oct. 1 is that Marylanders were let down," Brown said.

Brown says everyone involved in the rollout--including himself--is responsible, but he says they weren't made aware of the possible glitches until the days leading up to Oct. 1.

"What was presented at the time was characterized as minor glitches, some volume-related delays," Brown said. "Nothing like what we saw on Oct. 1."

Maryland's top officials have long said the website's initial performance was disappointing but they are focused now on getting more Marylanders enrolled.

Last week, the state hired more people to help enroll Marylanders in health plans on the website.

Brown is expected to go before lawmakers in Annapolis to explain the health exchange program's rocky rollout Tuesday.

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