Snarls in retooled MA insurance site

Sean Kimball of Windsor had a retort ready when friends expressed their objections to the Affordable Care Act. The 2006 Massachusetts health law, later a model for the national one, provided his family with affordable coverage following a layoff. But lately the state's online insurance marketplace has not been working for Kimball — or for many other consumers. Since the state relaunched its insurance website Oct. 1 to comply with the national law, it has had persistent problems: links lead nowhere, technological failures lock users out or deliver inexplicable error messages, and consumers endure long wait times to speak with customer service representatives, who sometimes offer little more than a suggestion to try again later.