The Affordable Care Act (commonly known as Obamacare) health insurance exchanges have been up since Monday, October 1, but few, if any, Montanans have actually been able to use the system.

After choosing their residence, many Montanans were greeted with the following image:

Health Insurance Marketplace Please Wait
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Photo courtesy of Healthcare.gov

Mary Angela Collins is a Missoula-area health insurance agent with Montana Health Insurance Experts, LLC. Collins received federal and state training on the exchanges and said things haven't gone smoothly on her end either.

"I eagerly tried to get on, as did millions of people," Collins said. "All of the states that did not build their own exchanges are using this same federal exchange. I could not get through. I got stopped at the secret questions. I played around with that for a while, went back in and got stopped there again."

Collins said that bugs were expected even before Monday and that folks should wait a bit.

"It sounds like many people had the same experience," Collins said. "That's what we expected. We've been telling our clients, 'Don't even bother going in the first week because the bugs have to be worked out and you might as well just let somebody else do that.'"

Montana is one of 27 states that have a federally run health insurance exchange. Other states have reported the same difficulties.

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