Technical glitches with the Affordable Care Act’s website caused hundreds of people to wait for hours at an open enrollment clinic at Orlando’s James R. Smith Community Center Monday.

Hundreds of people who showed up were not able to sign up because of issues with the site. But because they made the effort, they’ll be given an extension, which is a relief to many who were overwhelmed by the sign up process.

“The same thing that I’ve been telling people since we got started talking to people last summer is that this is health insurance, it’s important," said Jeannine Gage with Get Covered America. "It’s literally a life and death thing for many many people.”

Organizers say some of the people who wanted to sign up, didn’t realize they could do it at home, while others were intimidated by signing up alone.



But if you met the deadline and have at least began the process, volunteers are hoping the two-week extension period will go smoother because of one on one appointments with licensed healthcare navigators.



“We’re taking them to make an appointment to see a navigator within the next two weeks," Gage said. "They’ll have a good one on one time without a lot of craziness and a lot of wait, so they’ll be able to get taken care of then.”

If a person at least registered for healthcare by midnight, they then have until April 15 to complete the process. The White House announced the extension because of previous glitches with the website when enrollment first began.

Last-minute technical issues

The Obama administration has confirmed a new technical problem is preventing last-minute users from signing up on the government's health insurance website as traffic is surging on deadline day.

Health and Human Services spokesman Aaron Albright said technicians have identified an issue affecting consumers who are trying to create new accounts. As a result, new users will not be able to access the system for the time-being. Technicians are working to fix the problem.

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

When we went to the website, clicked "Apply Now" and selected our home state of Florida, we received a message that the system was down for maintenance:

The system isn't available at the moment. We're currently performing maintenance. Please try again later.

Under this message was a field to submit an email address to receive a notification when HealthCare.gov was ready to accept applications again.

A look at health care nationwide