Yesterday, like many others, I was rushing around making my last minute Christmas shopping purchases.  It was also the last day for many Americans who have not signed up for ObamaCare because the deadline was to be midnight Monday.  Good news for procrastinators who planned on trying to sign up, but hadn't.  The White House has extended Monday's deadline by 24 hours for Americans in 36 states.

CMS confirmed the change after The Washington Post first reported it. The acknowledgement came as applicants encountered site problems on Monday, with users being placed in a virtual waiting line when the system was overloaded.

The ObamaCare rollout has been plagued by a series of delays, both minute and extensive. Another, letting those whose plans were canceled sign up for bare-bones coverage, was announced right before the holiday break.

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The administration claimed that the site was running well Monday afternoon, saying Healthcare.gov received a record 850,000 visits, five times the number logged by the same time last Monday. Bataille said the system was handling the volume with error rates of less than 1 in 200 and response times of less than one second.

Obama said on Friday that more than 1 million Americans had enrolled for coverage since Oct. 1. The administration's estimates call for 3.3 million to sign up by Dec. 31, and the target is 7 million by the end of March. After that, people who fail to buy coverage can face tax penalties.

 

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