The latest salvo in the Trump administration’s battle tosink the Affordable Care Act has been launched.The already shortened enrollment period has now been furthercurtailed by the announcement from the administration that thefederal health insurance exchange website, healthcare.gov, will beshut down “for maintenance” for 12 hours during all but one Sundayin the upcoming open enrollment season.

Kaiser Health News reports that not only will the shutdowns occurfrom 12 a.m. to 12 p.m. ET every Sunday except December 10, but theDepartment of Health and Human Services will also shut downhealthcare.gov overnight on the first day of openenrollment, November 1. More than three dozen states, the reportsays, use that exchange for their marketplaces.

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The administration has already shortened the enrollment period, withdrawnmoney for advertising and cut the budget for navigator groups,which help people shop for plans. But to also shut down the websiteon Sundays will prevent many working patients—those who constitutethe prime target group for ACA insurance — from shopping for theirinsurance at the time many of them find most accessible, accordingto critics of the shutdown.

“The Department of Health & Human Services is activelytrying to prevent people from signing up for healthcare coverage,”Rep. Don Beyer, D-VA, is quoted saying in a tweet. He adds, “Thisis outrageous.”

This year’s open enrollment season runs only from November 1 toDecember 15, which is less than half the time people have hadpreviously for signing up during the ACA’s first four years ofexchanges. More than 12 million people enrolled on state andfederal marketplaces for 2017 coverage, including more than 9million on the federal exchange. ACA advocates were alreadyconcerned that the truncated signup period would mean that fewerpeople would sign up this year.

The report quotes Jason Stevenson, spokesman for the UtahHealth Policy Project, an ACA navigator group, saying, “I could seethis really impacting the ability of people to complete anapplication signup in a single sitting, which is so important.”Stevenson pointed out that 10 p.m. mountain time is often arelatively popular time for people to enroll online.

“Health insurance is complicated, and in the past couple ofyears we had an administration that made it easier to sign up, butthat has really changed in the past six months, with more hurdlesnot only for consumers but for those whose job it is to help them,”Stevenson adds.

While a spokesman for the Centers for Medicare & MedicaidServices, which oversees the exchanges, claimed that the shutdownsshould not cause too many problems, former Obama administrationofficials are not so optimistic, pointing out that the plannedshutdowns of healthcare.gov go far beyond earlier events; instead,they say that usually the online enrollment system was offline foronly a few hours at a time and such interruptions were much lessfrequent than once a week.

“Maintenance outages are regularly scheduled on healthcare.govevery year during open enrollment. This year is no different,” theCMS official is quoted saying; the official spoke on background,the report says, and requested anonymity. “The maintenance schedulewas provided in advance this year in order to accommodate requestsfrom certified application assisters. System downtime is plannedfor the lowest-traffic time periods on healthcare.gov, includingSunday evenings and overnight.”

But a federal report to Congress said that for the 2015 and 2016open enrollment seasons, healthcare.gov was online 99.9 percent of the time. The Trumpadministration plan cuts that to just 93 percent of the time, andduring an enrollment period that is only half the length it used tobe. While the shortened enrollment season amounts to just 45 daysinstead of the previous 90, the “maintenance” shutdowns furthershorten it to the equivalent of a mere 42 days.

“There is just a really big question as to why this ishappening,” Lori Lodes, former CMS communications director, says inthe report. “Have they done a comprehensive review of the tech andbelieve this is what is actually necessary? If so, then why don’tthey have confidence in the system?”