Illinois officials say more than 231,000 people have visited the Get Covered Illinois website, many of them looking for information on new options for health insurance.

The Illinois website routes people to a state Medicaid enrollment site or to a federal website depending on household income. The Medicaid side of the system appears to be working, with more than 5,000 applications submitted online.

But problems with the federal website continue to stop many people in Illinois and elsewhere from setting up accounts, comparing insurance policies and enrolling for coverage under the nation's new health care law.

Consumers are turning elsewhere. The call center for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois fielded five times the number of calls it normally does on Tuesday, and its website traffic jumped 75 percent.

Sean Gallup, Getty Images
Sean Gallup, Getty Images
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