Alex Nussbaum

From Maryland to Hawaii, Obamacare’s state-run enrollment operations are running into technical difficulties, creating new headaches for the White House even as the federal insurance website finds its footing.

The deadline to enroll in health plans that begin Jan. 1 was extended to midnight today from yesterday for most of the U.S., the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said. The extension was announced as healthcare.gov yesterday experienced a single-day record number of visits and consumers were moved into a queuing system deployed when the website approaches 50,000 simultaneous users.

The success of the health care overhaul relies on a diverse pool of customers where younger, healthier participants balance the costs of covering older, sicker people. Insurers say they can’t make more concessions without putting themselves at risk that patients will wait and sign up only when they need care.

President Barack Obama raised the stakes on his three-year-old health care overhaul Sunday, declaring that fixes to his administration’s troubled insurance exchange website make it ready to sign up 800,000 people a day.

The promise of 50,000 people being able to simultaneously use the site by Saturday – twice the capacity of last week – will be tested by congressional Republicans.

The lopsided enrollment between Medicaid, which is paid for with taxpayer money, and the private plans may boost criticism of the rising costs of the $1.4 trillion health law. High participation in the exchanges is critical to keeping the costs of medical coverage down.

As few as 20 or 30 enrollments per state per day are greeting the Obamacare marketplaces. With more congressional hearings on the rollout of the Affordable Care Act set to start tomorrow in the House, will lawmakers get some answers?

With the online site expected to face difficulties through November, Americans may have only weeks to find replacement coverage, and many may end up paying higher premiums.

With the online site expected to face difficulties through November, Americans may have only weeks to find replacement coverage, and many may end up paying higher premiums.

The Obama administration said it has reached out to the “best and brightest” from inside and outside of government to get its health insurance exchange up to speed, even as it faces another missed deadline for the rollout.

The HHS says that despite the technology limitations almost 500,000 Americans have now submitted applications for health insurance through all 51 exchanges.

High visitor traffic and technical problems plague exchange launch day in many states, giving new ammunition to Republicans critical of the law, but showing “how important” the law is, president counters.

The ‘Obamacare’ insurance exchanges got off to a rocky start, with many websites meant to provide new access to the uninsured seeing delays or breakdowns.

The three-year effort to open the Affordable Care Act health insurance exchanges culminates today, beset by logistical delays and efforts by Republicans to shut down the U.S. government in protest.

Republican governors seeking to make their states enemy territory for the ACA are facing a counteroffensive. Among the vanguard: two 74-year-old retirees walking the streets of working-class New Jersey.

Republican officials in Georgia, Indiana and Ohio have predicted premium increases of as much as 200% as one of the law’s chief components, online insurance marketplaces, take effect.

Supporters of the Affordable Care Act said they’ll debut a campaign this week in 18 U.S. states to promote a law still poorly understood by those designed to benefit most.

Judith Mayer Lynn, uninsured and battling breast cancer, should be a fan of the Affordable Care Act. Instead, she barely knows about it.

Anne Filipic, who helped Barack Obama secure a turning-point victory in the 2008 Iowa caucuses, plans to send thousands of volunteers door-to-door this year on a new campaign: to help the president sell the Affordable Care Act to the nation’s 50 million uninsured.

UnitedHealth Group Inc. will offer coverage in just a dozen of the Affordable Care Act’s new insurance exchanges, in the latest sign big insurers see little gain from quickly plunging into the new markets.