High traffic on the New York State of Health website is to be expected, according to the head of the state exchange. Saturday is the deadline to sign up for health insurance that starts the first of the year.
So far, during this open enrollment period which started Nov. 15, more than 194,000 New Yorkers who didn't have health insurance have signed up.
Donna Frescatore, the executive director of the New York Health Benefit Exchange, says more than 40,000 of those were added since last week.
"We do expect, as we've seen along the way, that as we get to very specific deadlines for coverage effective dates that the volume does tend to increase," she said.
Frescatore says the call center for the exchange got a record number of calls Monday -- 33 percent more than on the last day of the previous open enrollment.
The last day of this second open enrollment period is Feb. 15. But you have to sign up by Saturday, Dec. 20 if you want health insurance to start Jan. 1.
