Washington • The Obama administration says people will have another eight days this year to sign up for insurance under the health care law and still get coverage by Jan. 1
The extra wiggle room announced Friday is important because it could prevent people from having a break in coverage on account of the government's balky enrollment website. That's critical for those losing current individual policies that don't measure up under the law, and also for high-risk patients in a small federal insurance program that ends Jan. 1.
Under the change people will have until Dec. 23 to enroll and still be covered the first of year. Previously the enrollment deadline was Dec. 15.
Officials say the website is improving daily, but it still crashed for a few hours earlier this week.