Via The Hill:

A back-up system was deployed for HealthCare.gov on Monday at a lower traffic rate than federal officials projected, signaling there could be further trouble with the system.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) acknowledged that the site’s try-again-later system was initiated as roughly 35,000 users tried to access HealthCare.gov at the same time.

CMS had previously said the back-up system would be used only when HealthCare.gov was coping with 50,000 simultaneous visitors.

Officials said the decision came in response to a slight rise in error rates and response times across the site. CMS spokeswoman Julie Bataille sought to downplay the move, suggesting it was unrelated to the site’s overall functionality.

HealthCare.gov is coping with a wave of traffic that is roughly double what the site has seen on a typical Monday, according to CMS. User interest is expected to go up further this month as people seek to purchase plans that begin Jan. 1.

Reports of the site’s functionality were mixed. Some users appeared able to access the system for the first time since it launched on Oct. 1, while others remained bogged down in technical glitches.