State health-insurance website crashes after 24,000 use it; later, officials say almost 78,000 visited it by 7 p.m.

The website of Kynect, the state's new health-insurance marketplace, crashed at 8:30 a.m. today, because so many people were trying to use it, Gov. Steve Beshear's office said. Similar problems were reported in several other states. The site was restored, and by officials said almost 78,000 people had visited it by 7 p.m.

Beshear's office said 70,467 people ran screenings to determine their qualifications for subsidies, discounts, Medicaid or other programs, and "4,691 applications for health care coverage have been started; 2,902 are completed." Kynect's call center received nearly 6,000 calls, the governor's office said.

"Of the initial 1,000 applications . . . about 440 were for Medicaid and the rest were for private plans," Chris Kenning of The Courier-Journal reports.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2013/10/01/2853632/glitches-hamper-access-to-kentuckys.html#storylink=cpy