HealthCare.gov got steady consumer interest and also hit a bump Monday, the first weekday of the new sign-up season under the president’s health overhaul.
Consumers trying to open their existing accounts on the website got this message off and on during the afternoon: “HealthCare.gov has a lot of visitors right now! We need you to wait here, so we can make sure there’s enough room for you to have a good experience on our site.”
At other times, this message was displayed: “We’re busy making HealthCare.gov even better! Sorry you can’t get what you need right now. Please come back and visit again later.”
Spokeswoman Lori Lodes said one problem was fixed and issues will be addressed as they arise. Other areas of the website were working normally, she added.
In the past, a queueing feature has been used during periods of high volume to space out website visitors. It was unclear what Monday’s issue involved.
The administration said more than 1 million consumers visited HealthCare.gov this weekend, without the widespread technical problems experienced last year.
Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia M. Burwell said that more than 200,000 people dialed the federal call center. About 20,000 of those calls were to Spanish-speaking representatives.
The administration says about 100,000 people submitted applications for 2015 coverage, as of Saturday, the first day of open enrollment. That includes new and returning customers.
Also, there were more than 500,000 successful logins to consumer accounts the first day. The same customer could have logged in more than once. That figure includes new and returning customers.
HealthCare.gov serves 37 states. One state-run website – Washington’s- had initial problems that forced a temporary shutdown.
Burwell said last week that the federal site won’t be perfect.
“We will have outages, we will have downtime,” she said. “What we need to be able to do is be transparent … and get it fixed.”
Open enrollment runs through Feb. 15.