The administration says fewer than 27,000 people managed to enroll for health insurance last month in the 36 states relying on the problem-filled federal website for President Barack Obama's overhaul. 
 
 House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., holds up a checklist related to the preparation for the implementation of the Obamacare healthcare program, and specifically, the HealthCare.gov... (Associated Press) 
 
 House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif. makes an opening statement as his panel holds its first public hearing on problems implementing the Obamacare healthcare program, on Capitol... (Associated Press) 
 
 Todd Park, U.S. chief technology officer at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, who was previously chief technology officer at the Health and Human Services Department, raises his... (Associated Press) 
 
 From left, David Powner, director of information technology management issues at the Government Accountability Office; Henry Chao, deputy chief information officer for Medicare and Medicaid Services;... (Associated Press) 
 
 The dismal numbers released Wednesday by federal health officials were even lower than estimates recently circulated. There was one bright spot: States running their own websites did better than the feds, reporting more than 79,000 sign-ups. 
 
 Even so, total private insurance enrollment after the first month of the health care rollout was only about one-fifth what the administration had expected during that time period. 
 
 Enrollment numbers totaled 106,185. A Sept. 5 administration estimate had projected that 494,620 people would enroll in the first month. 
 
 Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius says she expects things to improve. 
 
 THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below. 
 
 After weeks of criticism over the balky rollout of the health care sign-up website, the Obama administration is releasing figures on how many people have successfully enrolled through the new federal insurance exchanges. 
 
 In advance, officials are lowering expectations for the numbers, given the widespread technical issues that have hampered the website since its Oct. 1 launch. 
 
 The tightly held numbers being released Wednesday are believed to amount to only a small fraction of the nearly 500,000 initial sign-ups that administration officials had projected before the healthcare.gov site went live. 
 
 The figures are expected to cover sign-ups that occurred in October, the first month of the six-month enrollment window. Officials say they expect enrollment to be heavier toward the end of that period. 
 
 The announcement was coming as congressional investigators held hearings into the technical issues behind the dysfunctional rollout of the website. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, had a long list of issues: insufficient testing, possible security flaws, design shortcomings _ even allegations of political meddling. 
 
 But there didn't seem to be a "smoking gun" behind the technical failure that has mortified supporters of President Barack Obama's health care law and cheered its opponents. The technology's cost to taxpayers: north of $600 million and climbing. 
 
 It was the sixth major congressional hearing since computerized insurance markets went live Oct. 1 and millions of consumers encountered frozen screens. The oversight committee was sharply divided along partisan lines. 
 
 "Established best practices of our government were not used in this case," said Issa. As a result, the law's promise of affordable health insurance "does not exist today in a meaningful way." Like other Republicans, Issa wants the law repealed, not fixed. 
 
 Ranking Democrat Elijah Cummings of Maryland questioned Issa's fairness. 
 
 Addressing Issa directly, Cummings said: "Over the past month, instead of working in a bipartisan manner to improve the website, you've politicized this issue by repeatedly making unfounded allegations." 
 
 A key issue for Issa is why the administration required consumers to first create online accounts at HealthCare.gov before they could shop for health plans. That runs counter to the common e-commerce practice of allowing anonymous window-shopping. Outside experts say it increased the workload on a wobbly system. 
 
 Issa and other Republicans suspect a political motive; Democrats say the explanation has to do with technical issues. The shopping feature had its own glitches and would have compounded system problems. 
 
 The hearing featured Henry Chao, a little-known Medicare official, who had presented an overview of the enrollment system back in the spring, and commented then, "Let's just make sure it's not a third-world experience." 
 
 Chao is deputy chief information officer for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which also is leading the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. A career official who earlier helped implement the Medicare prescription drug benefit, he is widely seen as the operational official most knowledgeable about the health care law's online system. 
 
 Chao's public comment in March at an insurance industry forum was taken as an edgy joke, and he later joined the parade of administration officials who assured lawmakers that everything was on track for a smooth launch, even as nonpartisan experts from the congressional Government Accountability Office warned that could not be taken for granted. 
 
 Issa's investigators previously grilled Chao in a private session that lasted nine hours. Chao's name appears on a key Sept. 27 document authorizing the launch of the website despite incomplete security testing. But Issa's staff has released materials indicating that Chao was unaware of a memo earlier that month detailing unresolved security issues. 
 
 On Wednesday, Chao testified that he is confident that the system is secure. In fact, he said he had recommended to his sister that she try it. 
 
 Chao was also involved in the decision not to allow anonymous window-shopping, which is available on most e-commerce sites, including Medicare.gov. 
 
 He testified Wednesday that the shopping feature "miserably" failed testing and would not have been a help to consumers. Chao said that shortly before the launch he directed a contractor to turn off the shopping feature, and instead apply resources to a more critical function. 
 
 Issa has suggested a political calculation: The administration wanted to avoid consumers experiencing "sticker shock" over premiums, so it first required them to compute tax credits that work like a discount. 
 
 The committee also heard from Todd Park, the White House chief technology officer. 
 
 He testified that the website is getting better day by day, and week by week. It can now handle about 17,000 account registrations an hour. Page response times are under one second. 
 
 But Park balked when Rep. Scott DesJarlais, R-Tenn., asked what letter grade he would give to the website rollout. "Obviously it's been really, really rocky," said Park. "It's what nobody wanted." 
 
 Separately, the House Homeland Security Committee held its own hearing Wednesday. 
 
 It gave Republicans a chance to criticize the health care law and the botched online rollout. But it resulted in few answers on the security of the website because officials testifying from Homeland Security said that wasn't their responsibility. 
 
 While that department helps federal agencies like Health and Human Services comply with federal security standards, the law leaves many of the technical decisions up to the agencies themselves, the officials said. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Associated Press writer Anne Flaherty contributed to this report. ||||| Memo Reveals Only 6 People Signed Up for Obamacare on First Day 
 
 Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius prepares to testify on Capitol Hill in Washington, Oct. 30, 2013. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo) 
 
 Just six people successfully enrolled in health insurance plans through the new federal marketplace, HealthCare.gov, on the first day it went live, according to internal Obama administration "notes" released tonight by the House Oversight Committee. 
 
 By the end of the second day, 248 people had enrolled, the documents show. 
 
 The "war room notes," prepared by the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight, offer the first rough snapshot of how many Americans were able to enroll on Oct. 1 and 2, reflecting all the technical snafus that plagued the site. 
 
 You can read the documents HERE , HERE and HERE . 
 
 The informal memos were turned over this week as part of a document request to the Republican-chaired House Oversight Committee, which is investigating the rocky rollout of the insurance portal. They clearly indicate recognition that "direct enrollment [was] not working" because of "high capacity" on the site, though the documents note that dozens of applications were getting created. 
 
 To date, Obama administration officials have refused to publicly provide any estimate of successful enrollments, though they have said the site received 4.7 million unique visitors on its first day and has now generated more than 700,000 applications. 
 
 An internal administration memo obtained by The Associated Press and confirmed by ABC News revealed that the administration projected half a million successful sign-ups by Oct. 31. 
 
 In her testimony this week, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius suggested that the now well-documented technical flaws in the system make any early estimate unreliable. 
 
 "We do not have any reliable data around enrollment, which is why we haven't given it to date," she told the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Wednesday. 
 
 "According to the insurance companies, who are eager to have customers, they are not getting reliable data all the way through the system," she explained. "It's one of the real problems that we have." 
 
 HHS spokeswoman Joanne Peters stressed tonight that the enrollment figures presented in the "war room notes" are unofficial figures. The agency has said it intends to release its first official report on enrollments by mid-November. 
 
 "We will release enrollment statistics on a monthly basis after coordinating information from different sources such as paper, on-line, and call centers, verifying with insurers, and collecting data from states," she said. 
 
 Administration officials have also sought to downplay low early enrollment estimates by citing the Massachusetts experience of 2007, when just 123 people successfully enrolled in the first month of "Romneycare." ||||| Administration officials are preparing to announce Sunday that they have met their Saturday deadline for improving HealthCare.gov, according to government officials, in part by expanding the site’s capacity so that it can handle 50,000 users at once. But they have yet to meet all their internal goals for repairing the federal health-care site, and it will not become clear how many consumers it can accommodate until more people try to use it. 
 
 Government and outside technical employees worked through the night on the latest upgrade, intended to increase the Web site’s capacity for consumers seeking to go through the early stages of registering for an account and then logging in. The upgrade was successfully completed about 4 a.m. Saturday, according to a government official familiar with the project, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe details that the administration was not publicly disclosing. 
 
 But it was not immediately apparent, the official said, whether the improvement meant that the site can now meet one of the Obama administration’s internal goals — for 80,000 people per hour to be able to register and 320,000 per hour to be able to log in — and added that the overnight tinkering was, at least for now, causing a slight increase in error messages on the site. 
 
 An official at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the agency overseeing the federal health insurance exchange, said the site’s true capacity is somewhat murky because workers need to see how it performs under “weekday traffic volumes” when demand is at its peak. 
 
 Nov. 30 was not originally intended to be a key date for the online enrollment system, but it took on outsize political and public importance when administration officials announced five weeks ago that the “vast majority of users” would be able to sign up for insurance through the site by that day. A combination of federal employees, outside contractors and a handful of technical and management experts have worked at breakneck speed for five weeks to improve the Web site’s performance as the White House has come under withering criticism from its political opponents and some consumers. 
 
 In an interview with Barbara Walters that aired on ABC on Friday night, President Obama said he was confident that, in time, Americans would come to embrace his controversial health-care law. 
 
 “I continue to believe, and [I am] absolutely convinced, that at the end of the day, people are going to look back at the work we’ve done to make sure that in this country you don’t go bankrupt when you get sick, that families have that security,” Obama said. “That is going be a legacy I am extraordinarily proud of.” 
 
 Administration officials have said for several weeks they define success as having “the vast majority of users” be able to navigate the site and sign up for insurance. While they initially did not define what that meant, White House press secretary Jay Carney said earlier this month that the administration’s aim was to have 80 percent of users enroll through the site. Those working on the project have set speed and error rates as a way of measuring that goal. 
 
 A significant upgrade in the Web site’s capacity was carried out early this week, according to the government officials, which allowed HealthCare.gov to accommodate more people at once without causing the site to malfunction. For instance, many more consumers can simultaneously be on a section of the site designed to let people compare available health plans. 
 
 Even so, how much load the site can withstand depends on how much consumers are asking it to do. For example, simply looking around on the “learn” part of the site — where people can get basic information and a rough sense of prices — puts less strain on the system than the areas where people actually apply for coverage. 
 
 The team has not yet attained its target of cutting the average load time across the site to no more than half a second, officials said, though it is running faster than before. 
 
 The blitz to rehabilitate the site has entailed an unusual public and private partnership over the past five weeks. The White House rejected the idea of turning over the work of fixing the site mainly to Silicon Valley allies, some of whom served as the president’s campaign operatives, deciding instead to selectively tap a handful of them to help steer the project. 
 
 Michael “Mikey” Dickerson, a Google employee who is on leave and volunteered on both of Obama’s campaigns, has led the twice-daily calls in which the entire team has discussed ongoing problems and how to solve them. Civis Analytics chief technology officer Gabriel Burt, who served as lead analytics engineer and product manager for Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign, has also been deeply involved. 
 
 Jeffrey Zients, the former acting director of the Office of Management and Budget who was designated by the White House in late October to oversee the project, told reporters during a briefing this week that the administration “brought in a fresh set of eyes” the week of Oct. 21 to examine the system. He said that survey concluded within a few days that the Web site could be fixed and that it did not need to be thrown out and a new one installed — but that the fix would require “additional talent and expertise” and a different way of approaching the site’s defects. 
 
 The work on HealthCare.gov took place primarily in two places: in a command center dubbed the “Exchange Operation Center,” or XOC, in Columbia, Md., and in the Tysons Corner area of Fairfax County. QSSI President Bikram Bakshi — whose company developed the system’s data hub and became the project’s general contractor on Oct. 25 — said in the briefing that “other business analysts, system analysts, developers and testers [were] scattered across the D.C. metro area.” 
 
 Since starting work, the team has “knocked through well over 300 bugs,” Zients said, and each evening the group has either put in hardware upgrades or fixed a glitch during the four- to five-hour maintenance window it has to work on the site. 
 
 The 25 people working in the command center, who represent all the major contractors that helped build the site, can evaluate HealthCare.gov’s real-time performance through 15 screens capturing its overall response time, error rate, volume of traffic and visitor makeup and which functions users are performing at a given time. When they see a disparity in the readings, Bakshi said, “then the team springs into action” to try to fix it. 
 
 John Engates, chief technology officer for the cloud computing company Rackspace, toured the project’s command center Monday with a handful of other private tech experts and said he was encouraged that workers there have streamlined the ­decision-making. “There isn’t a lot of ‘Let’s run it up the flagpole.’ That’s what’s helping things run more smoothly,” he said. 
 
 Before touring the command center, Engates, along with representatives from Salesforce.com, IBM and other firms, met in the Situation Room with senior White House officials, including Zients, Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, chief technology officer Todd Park and chief information officer Steven VanRoekel. 
 
 Salesforce.com chairman and chief executive Marc Benioff, who hosted a fundraiser with Obama at his home Monday in San Francisco, said in a phone interview that he has dispatched two employees to the White House to provide what he described as “coaching and mentoring.” 
 
 “A friend in need is a friend indeed. Silicon Valley is a friend of President Obama’s, and we’re going to help the government get through this,” Benioff said, noting that his employees were taking no compensation for their efforts. 
 
 But there are also limits to this support. Benioff said he had “offered to rebuild the entire HealthCare.gov site for free and run it for five years at no charge” in direct talks with the White House, but the administration declined the offer. 
 
 A White House official said the administration could not have accepted the offer, because it ran afoul of federal contracting rules.
– Experts didn't think the White House could reach a goal of 7 million ObamaCare signups as of yesterday—but it looks like their forecasts were wrong. Officials say the administration was on track to receive more than 7 million signups, in line with the original Congressional Budget Office target numbers. That target had earlier been shrunk to 6 million following HealthCare.gov's troubled debut, the AP notes. Still, among the 7 million, it's uncertain how many had previously lacked any coverage; it also remains to be seen how many new enrollees complete the process by actually paying their first premiums. "It's kind of the lead-up to Christmas right now, and all the last-minute shoppers are out," one health insurance marketer tells the Huffington Post of yesterday's flurry of new enrollees. The huge volume resulted in headaches and came amid site glitches, as HealthCare.gov struggled to keep up with traffic that at times topped 125,000 simultaneous visitors. The 7 million milestone is particularly impressive given the meager 26,000 the website managed to sign up in its first month, NBC News notes. Those who missed yesterday's deadline—and haven't qualified for one of nine extensions and exceptions to the rules—won't get another chance at open enrollment until November.