WASHINGTON—The Obama administration said it would take its new health-insurance marketplace offline for several hours over the weekend after technology problems plagued consumers during the first four days of operation.
The Department of Health and Human Services said the part of the HealthCare.gov website that handles applications for insurance will be offline "during off-peak hours over the weekend." It didn't give precise times but said on Twitter that the shutdowns would start after 1 a.m.
Heavy traffic and other technology issues have prevented many people from buying coverage on the federally run insurance marketplace since it opened Oct. 1, and consumers have often encountered error messages in the early stages of applying.
The federal government is running all or part of new health-insurance exchanges for 36 states that declined to do so on their own. Fourteen states and the District of Columbia are running their own exchanges, and some have had more success in enrolling consumers in new health-insurance plans.
The administration's statement late Friday acknowledged the federal troubles only indirectly, saying it would assign "more technicians working around the clock to find problems and rapidly fix them."
Republicans said the initial stumbles demonstrated that the Affordable Care Act should be delayed or repealed.
"This week, the American people have seen once again that Obamacare is not ready for prime time," said House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R., Va.) on Friday. "A dysfunctional website is the least of that law's problems."
Health and Human Services said in an emailed statement that the strong traffic on the website "showed the pent-up demand that Americans have for affordable, quality health coverage."
The department said HealthCare.gov has received 8.6 million unique visitors, and the call center has received 406,000 calls.
"We expect that Monday, less than a week after the marketplace opening, there will be significant improvements in the online consumer experience," the department said.
Write to Peter Landers at peter.landers@wsj.com
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