More glitches for HealthCare.gov on last enrollment day

With less than 24 hours left for Americans to begin the process of signing up for health insurance on HealthCare.gov, the site was down for maintenance part of Monday morning to deal with what the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said was a software bug unrelated to expected volume.

The site undergoes regular maintenance during overnight hours, which were extended an additional four hours into Monday morning. People seeking to purchase health insurance can still reach the call centers.

By 9 a.m., the site was back up and running. HHS is anticipating heavy use Monday as last-minute shoppers look for insurance. The administration has said that anyone who began the sign-up process by the deadline will be allowed to finish enrolling after it has passed.

But then, after Noon Eastern Time, HHS said a new technical problem was preventing last-minute users from signing up on the government's health insurance website.

HHS spokesman Aaron Albright said the second problem prevented new users from accessing the system, but the problem was later resolved.

Albright said more than 100,000 people are using the system at the same time.

Traffic has held steady at about 1.5 million visitors per day as the sign-up deadline has approached. HHS said that the site had 1.7 million visits on Sunday, as well as 364,000 calls.