Updated Dec. 24, 2013 6:23 p.m. ET
Federal officials dealing with a last-minute rush of applications said Tuesday that some people who missed a deadline to get health insurance because of computer problems may still get coverage in time for Jan. 1.
A Department of Health and Human Services spokeswoman, Joanne Peters, said call-center representatives "are doing casework on an individual basis for people who tried and had issues" with the federal HealthCare.gov website.
A notice on the site said that people who "might have run into delays" should contact a call center. "We still may be able to help you get covered as soon as January 1," it said.
While limited to people who have already started the application process by Tuesday and are seeking help by phone, the last-minute notice marked the latest case in which the Obama administration sought to give extra time after the site's disastrous Oct. 1 rollout.
Initially the administration set a Dec. 15 deadline for those who wanted coverage taking effect Jan. 1. It later moved that date to Monday, Dec. 23, and then, when that date arrived, gave an additional day as a "fail-safe" for those who faced delays because of high traffic.
The changes have helped lift lagging enrollment but also have led to confusion among consumers, taken insurers off-guard and compressed an already-tight timeline for the industry to put coverage in place by Jan. 1.
Figures from the federal government and several states suggested a surge of last-minute interest in new health-insurance plans as the final hours ticked down Tuesday. Still, the total signing up is likely to fall short of original projections.
The Obama administration said Tuesday that HealthCare.gov, which serves 36 states, received two million visits on Monday, and the call center logged some 250,000 calls. California and New York, which are among the 14 states running their own health-insurance websites, reported heavy enrollment over the weekend.
Spokeswoman Julie Bataille of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said website visits and call volumes remained high Tuesday but were down from Monday. The call center was set to close at midnight for the Christmas holiday and reopen Thursday.
The federal and state websites are designed to offer coverage for those who don't have health insurance through their employer or a government program such as Medicare. Starting in 2014, most Americans who fail to carry health insurance will have to pay a tax penalty, which starts at $95 or 1% of taxable income in 2014 and rises in subsequent years.
Some of the states running their own sites have set even later deadlines. Oregon had earlier delayed its sign-up deadline for Jan. 1 coverage to Friday. Minnesota is giving consumers until New Year's Eve to choose coverage starting the next day.
Colorado said Tuesday it would continue working through Friday to help people receive coverage effective Jan. 1. "We're doing everything possible" to help those who have started, said Patty Fontneau, head of the state's health-insurance exchange. "You have to be finished by Friday."
In an interview, Ms. Fontneau said Colorado had more sign-ups Monday than in the entire month of October.
Only about 365,000 people signed up for private plans nationwide through November. Since then, the numbers have picked up, and President Barack Obama said Friday the December enrollments had pushed the number past one million.
California officials said Monday about 400,000 people have enrolled in private coverage so far, with nearly one-fifth of those coming in just three days—last Friday, Saturday and Sunday. New York state said it had 188,546 people in private coverage as of Sunday, while the number in Kentucky more than doubled since Thanksgiving week to 26,042.
Still, the nationwide total through December looks likely to fall short of the more than three million enrollees in private coverage the Obama administration foresaw in one early projection.
Enrollment for 2014 plans continues through March 31. The Congressional Budget Office projected in May that seven million people would sign up for private coverage through the new health-insurance exchanges in 2014.
—Jennifer Corbett Dooren contributed to this article.
Write to Peter Landers at peter.landers@wsj.com
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