AP

In early October, Patrick Lamanske of Champaign, Ill., works with Amanda Ziemnisky, right, of the Champaign Urbana Public Health District office in Champaign to try to sign his wife, Ping Lamanske, left, up for health care coverage through the Affordable Care Act.

About 100,000 people signed up for health insurance in November through HealthCare.gov, the plagued online federal health exchange, according to Bloomberg News' Julianna Goldman. The number would mean about four times as many people enrolled through the federal exchanges in November when compared to October.

The Obama administration has yet to release specific enrollment numbers, saying it will do so officially on a monthly basis. The numbers reflect individuals that have selected a plan successfully.

The number, while encouraging for the administration, is still far from its original goal. Marilyn Tavenner, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, said at a Senate hearing last month that the administration had hoped for 800,000 enrollees in October and November.

Just more than 100,000 people total signed up for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act in October. The bulk of that came from state-run exchanges. Only 26,794 signed up via HealthCare.gov, the rollout of which was disastrous at the beginning of October. The federal website serves 36 states.

The Obama administration announced a "tech surge" in late October as the problems piled up, and on Sunday it declared that it had met the goal of improving the website to the point where the "vast majority" of users can use the site without much trouble.

Some of the key changes touted in a progress report from the administration:

The site will now be able to support a maximum of 800,000 visitors per day, including a target of 50,000 concurrent visits.

The site is now online 90% of the time, according to the The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The "tech surge" that came to the site in late October has helped to fix 400-plus bugs and glitches on a "punch list."

The average response time of the site is now less than one second, an improvement from about 8 seconds in late October.

"The bottom line: HealthCare.gov on December 1st is night and day from where it was on October 1st," Jeff Zients, the official in charge of the tech surge, said in a conference call with reporters on Sunday.





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