Obamacare Hits Web Snags on Day One

Obamacare rolls out to a rocky start after snarled web traffic and technical glitches marred the launch of those new insurance exchanges on Tuesday.

“The doors flung open on the new marketplace where millions of Americans should be able to sign up for health insurance,” reports CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta. “Within minutes, ‘thud’—the sites started going down, overwhelmed, they say, by heavy traffic.”

President Obama addressed the issue midday saying, “Now, like every new law, every new product roll-out, there are going to be some glitches in the signup process along the way that we will fix. I've been saying this from the start. And we're going to be speeding things up in the next few hours to handle all this demand that exceeds anything that we had expected.”

But, with the Obamacare at the heart of the shutdown dispute, his critics couldn’t be swayed.

Senator Roy Blunt scrutinized the President’s statements saying, “Glitches means it’s not working, and I don't think the glitches get any better over the next few weeks.”

But with the rising costs of health care, 62-year-old Howard Stovall has high hopes for Obamacare for his business in Lexington, Kentucky.

“This year, if we do nothing and keep the same plan, it'll be about a 30% increase,” he says. “We're expecting to have a lot more variety in what's available to us and to what’s available to our employees.”

Stovall struggled to get access to the website, however, hitting “roadblocks, and some confusing requests to download software.”

“We heard from the federal government, three million people accessed the site,” Dr. Gupta reports. “Thousands only that were able to get through the process all around the country.

He adds, “Keep in mind though, this was Day One, and this is open enrollment that lasts six months.”