Deadline puts health care site to the test

Associated Press

CHICAGO

The government’s retooled health care website was put to its biggest test yet as record numbers of Americans rushed to beat Tuesday’s extended deadline for signing up for insurance.

After a disastrous, glitch-filled rollout in October, HealthCare.gov, where people in 36 states can shop for coverage, received 2 million visits Monday, its highest one-day total, the government said.

Traffic was not as heavy Tuesday but still high, White House spokeswoman Tara McGuinness said. She had no immediate estimate of visitors or how many succeeded in obtaining insurance before the midnight deadline.

“The site is performing well under intense consumer traffic,” said Kurt DelBene, a former Microsoft executive appointed last week to take over management of the online marketplace. “With the highest volumes we have seen to date, response time is fast and the error rating is low.”

Error rates were lower than 1 in 200, and pages loaded quickly, in less than a half-second, officials said.

For a multitude of reasons, including technical difficulties with the site or trouble understanding the instructions, thousands of people sought telephone help and wound up waiting on hold on Christmas Eve at the government’s call center.

More than 110,000 people had called the government’s help line by Tuesday afternoon, with wait times averaging 27 minutes, officials said. Monday was the sign-up deadline for people wanting coverage at the start of the new year. But the Obama administration pushed back the deadline a day to deal with heavy traffic from procrastinators.