Obamacare Technology Malfunctions, Stops Enrollment

A malfunction in key technology behind the Obamacare website left users unable to apply for health coverage late Sunday.

Joanne Peters, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services, said a vendor networking issue at Verizon subsidiary Terremark was to blame. Peters said the vendor had "experienced a failure in a networking component," and the attempted fix crashed the system.

Peters said that HHS chief Kathleen Sebelius had discussed the problem with Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam.

Verizon (VZ, Fortune 500) spokesman Jeff Nelson said his company was working on the issue and it would be "fixed as quickly as possible."

The outage was the latest issue to hit the troubled HealthCare.gov. Since a disappointing debut on Oct. 1, some users have been unable to create accounts or sign up for coverage.

“Now, we expect Secretary Sebelius will get a lot of tough questions about this problem and all the others when she testifies before Congress on Wednesday,” CNN’s Athena Jones reports.

“And that's the same day the president heads to Boston to promote Obamacare.”

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