Feds Pushed Obamacare Website Launch After Simulation Crashed With Just a Few Hundred Concurrent Users

2,000 people trying to complete step 1 could've crashed healthcare.gov on the first day

Days before the launch of President Obama's online health ­insurance marketplace, government officials and contractors tested a key part of the Web site to see whether it could handle tens of thousands of consumers at the same time. It crashed after a simulation in which just a few hundred people tried to log on simultaneously.

Despite the failed test, federal health officials plowed ahead.