Open enrollment on Healthcare.gov for the Affordable Care Act is over, and President Barack Obama said the number of signups has reached the White House's goal of 7.1 million — despite a slew of glitches on the website.
The president addressed those problems from the Rose Garden on Tuesday afternoon.
“The law’s not perfect," Obama said. "We’ve had to make adjustments along the way. The implementation, especially with the website, has had its share of problems."
Issues started in October when the website couldn't handle a modest amount of traffic after it launched, which caused more than a month's worth of glitches and delays. More issues sprung up Monday—the final day of open enrollment—shutting down the site for around six hours and restricting users from creating new accounts for about 60 minutes.
See also: How President Obama Ended Up on 'Between Two Ferns'
But Obama also said that problems with the site are no longer relevant when it comes to the law's effectiveness.
“Press, I want you to anticipate, there will be some moment when the website is down, and it will be on all your front pages," Obama said. "It’s gonna happen. It won’t be news.”
Those problems have indeed taken a backseat to high enrollment numbers that may have stemmed from Obama's recent push to get young people to sign up. The president even plugged his healthcare law on "Between Two Ferns," the online Funny or Die comedy series hosted by Zach Galifianakis.
In an interview with Huffington Post Live on Monday, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius said they definitely saw a "Galifianakis bump" in enrollment traffic after the president appeared on the show.
"The website traffic surged once the 'Between Two Ferns' interview went on," Sebelius said on the show. Later, she added, "As a mother of two 30-something sons, I know they're more likely to get their information on Funny or Die than they are on network TV."
Vice President Joe Biden also did his part when he appeared on the Rachael Ray Show Monday to talk about the Affordable Care Act.
The push to get young people to sign up is key to the law's success because money garnered from young people may offset what it costs to provide healthcare for older and unhealthy Americans.
Though the website closed its enrollment as of midnight on April 1, it will soon reopen to anyone who had started but not finished enrolling. For anyone who did not begin the process, the next open enrollment starts on Nov. 15.
“This law is doing what it’s supposed to do," Obama said. "It’s working. It’s helping people from coast to coast.”
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