Insurance markets open to surge of new customers

CHICAGO — The online insurance marketplaces at the heart of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul struggled to handle the wave of eager new consumers Tuesday, the first day of a six-month open-enrollment period that inaugurates the biggest expansion in coverage in nearly 50 years.

A combination of high demand and technical glitches seemed to overwhelm the online system early in the day. Federal and state officials were working to address the problems, which led to long waits on government websites and a federal call center.

In Obama’s home state, dozens of people who came to a Champaign, Ill., public health office to sign up for coverage found computer screens around the room flashing an error message: “System is unavailable.”

State-operated sites also experienced glitches. Rhode Island’s site opened as scheduled, but was quickly overwhelmed by visitors and went down. A spokesman for the New York Department of Health blamed problems with the 2 million visits to the website in the first 90 minutes after its launch. Washington state’s marketplace used Twitter to thank users for their patience.

As a sign of how ready Americans were to get started, Obama said more than 1 million people had visited the government’s main website before 7 a.m. EDT — exceeding expectations and contributing to the delays.

The shutdown will have no immediate effect on the insurance marketplaces that are the backbone of the law, because they operate with money that isn’t subject to the annual budget wrangling in Washington.