Glitches Reported On First Day Of Registration For Health Insurance Exchanges

WASHINGTON (AP) — On the first day of the enrollment period for the online insurance marketplaces that are a key part of the health care overhaul, people who are trying to register are running into problems.

The system is struggling to handle the wave of new consumers, and it's apparently being overwhelmed by a combination of high demand and technical glitches.

A woman logging in from Texas and a man in southern Illinois say they ran into similar glitches. They couldn't get past the security questions while trying to set up their personal accounts through healthcare.gov. Kimberly Shockley, a self-employed CPA, already has health insurance, but is looking for a better plan. Mike Weaver, a self-employed photographer, is uninsured.

State-operated sites are also seeing glitches. Rhode Island's site opened as scheduled, but it was quickly overwhelmed by visitors and went down. Officials in New York say there were problems caused by the 2 million visits to their website in the first 90 minutes after launch.