Add yet another glitch in the rollout of President Barack Obama’s federal health insurance program, the Affordable Care Act.

As many as one in 10 enrollees in the health insurance exchange have failed to make their first premium payment, according to a report this week in a Pittsburgh newspaper. Their payments were due Jan. 1, when ACA-regulated coverage for individual enrollees went active.

According to the law, nonpayment means the applicants never completed the enrollment process and are not yet covered. Thousands of Pennsylvanians are in this group, according to the insurance companies that offer coverage to individuals under ACA.

This latest snafu extends a chain of numerous delays, deadline extensions and exemptions — 24 unilateral changes, according to the Republican Party’s count — since its enactment in March 2010. It follows the botched October rollout of the HealthCare.gov website.

Programming glitches prevented countless thousands from enrolling via HealthCare.gov and, it’s now revealed, from making an initial premium payment. The news report indicates nonpayment might not be the fault of many applicants. Their information transferred slowly, if it transferred at all, from the government exchange to the participating insurers.

Actually, these folks are covered, sort of. More than two months ago, the Department of Health and Human Services began asking insurers to be lenient with Obamacare customers who are late with their first payment. On Dec. 12, the Obama administration encouraged insurers to honor late sign-ups with retroactive coverage, forgive late and partial payment of their premiums, and honor treatments performed by out-of-network doctors.

The government’s appeal for leniency amounts to an admission that additional problems with Obamacare were anticipated. The appeal also puts insurers in a tight spot:

• They can either deny coverage, making themselves the target of scorn from enrollees who had been assured by the administration that they had coverage; or

• They can cover the unpaid enrollees and wait for the government to reimburse their losses — or even get a share of a rumored federal bailout.

Given the options, insurers are likely to comply with Obama’s request for leniency.

And they should comply, but only under protest, as changes and delays to the massive health care reform law continue to be made unilaterally by Obama without congressional approval.

Officially, a request for leniency is not a 25th unilateral change to Obamacare, but it might as well be. The term “too big to fail” comes to mind — and hints at a possible bailout for insurers being asked to shoulder a big share of ACA’s financial burden.