Millions Flock to (Glitchy) ObamaCare Website

But it's not clear how many actually gained coverage
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 2, 2013 2:53 AM CDT
Updated Oct 2, 2013 7:34 AM CDT
Millions Visit (Glitchy) ObamaCare Website
An employee of Covered California, the state's new health care exchange, provides health insurance at the newly opened call center yesterday.   (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)

The large number of technical glitches experienced as ObamaCare health insurance exchanges opened in every state yesterday were the result of popularity, according to administration officials. With 2.8 million visitors to the federal website by yesterday afternoon, "we're off to a good start," said the chief of the agency overseeing the online marketplaces; but some states running their own marketplaces, including Hawaii, Maryland, Minnesota, and Washington, had to delay the launch of their own websites and officials refused to say how many people successfully gained health coverage yesterday, the Los Angeles Times reports.

The demand "exceeds anything that we had expected," President Obama said yesterday, comparing the technical problems to glitches with Apple products, but it wasn't clear whether the issues were the result of heavy traffic or major design flaws, the New York Times notes. To nobody's surprise, lawmakers from different parties had very different takes on the rollout, reports the Hill. "If this doesn’t show the hunger the American people have to sign up for health care, I don't know what does," Harry Reid told an enrollment celebration on Capitol Hill, while House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa said the problems showed "how totally unprepared the government is" for the launch of "this train wreck of a law." (More ObamaCare stories.)

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