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 getting insurance to continue smoothly Jan. 1 if an existing policy ends Dec. 31.
HealthCare.gov, where people in 36 states can shop for coverage, received 2 million visits Monday, its highest one-day total since its October rollout, officials said.
Traffic was not as heavy on Tuesday but still high, said White House spokeswoman Tara McGuinness.
“The site is performing well under intense consumer traffic,” said Kurt DelBene, a former Microsoft executive appointed last week to manage 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 in less than a half-second, officials said.
For a multitude of reasons, including technical difficulties with the site or trouble understanding the instructions, more than 110,000 people had called the government’s help line by Tuesday afternoon, with wait times averaging 27 minutes, officials said. On Monday, the call center received more than 250,000 calls, a one-day record.
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.
“We see this intense traffic as a sign that people are eager for affordable health insurance,” said Julie Bataille, a spokeswoman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the federal agency in charge of the overhaul.
While there were no immediate reports of any major glitches, the White House said that people who can show they missed the deadline because of problems with the website may still be able to get covered by Jan. 1 on a case-by-case basis. Those who try to sign up for the first time after the deadline passes can still get coverage, but it won’t start until Feb. 1.
When the number of simultaneous users reached 60,000 on Monday, site operators employed a queuing system that allows people to either wait or give an email address to be invited back later, the government said. More than 129,000 users gave their email.
On Tuesday, traffic wasn’t heavy enough to trigger the system, McGuinness said in the afternoon.
The insurance industry, too, has pushed back deadlines for payment, with most health plans allowing customers to pay by Jan. 10 and still get coverage retroactive to Jan. 1.
