(Reuters) - The Obama administration has made headway against an online bottleneck that jammed enrollment for the president's healthcare reform, but new technical problems greeted users on Monday, showing how difficult it will be to get consumers registered in time for insurance coverage to start January 1.
Three weeks after the launch of new health insurance plans under Obamacare, users were able to create accounts for themselves and begin the process of enrolling through the Healthcare.gov insurance marketplace, according to people aiding the sign-up effort.
But further into the process, error messages and other difficulties were apparent, leading to fresh frustrations for health insurers and nonprofit groups who want to help millions of uninsured Americans sign up for benefits as promised under President Barack Obama's signature healthcare law.
"We have seen progress every day," said Nasim Zahran of Miami's Borinquen Medical Health Care Centers, where hundreds of people are waiting to enroll in coverage.
"Today was the first day that we got all the way to the last screen. But then an error screen popped up saying the site would be down for 72 hours," Zahran said.
Healthcare.gov saw 14.6 million unique visits in its first 10 days, a larger-than-expected public response that raised hopes Obamacare would meet with strong enough demand in its first year.
But the site's limited ability to enroll consumers is becoming an increasing focus of Obamacare's Republican foes, who say the government was not ready to implement the law and should have delayed it.
Experts say the administration has until mid-November to iron out the problems or risk jeopardizing its goal of signing up 7 million people in the first year of the Obamacare marketplaces. The number includes 2.7 million healthy young adults whose participation will help offset the higher cost of insuring sicker and older beneficiaries.
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