WASHINGTON (AP) — As a crucial second sign-up season gears up, the Obama administration said Sunday that HealthCare.gov is stable and working well, a far cry from last year's frozen computer screens and frustrated customers. 
 
 Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell smiles while answering a reporters question following her tour of the Greater Prince William Community Health Center, Evergreen Terrace Site, in Manassas,... (Associated Press) 
 
 Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell gestures while answering a reporters question following her tour of the Greater Prince William Community Health Center, Evergreen Terrace Site, in Manassas,... (Associated Press) 
 
 Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia M. Burwell said she expects "strong and healthy growth" for 2015. About 7 million people are signed up, and Burwell expects to grow that by 2 million more or so. 
 
 The Congressional Budget Office has projected a total of 13 million enrolled for 2015, and some see the administration as trying to lower expectations. 
 
 Burwell told NBC's "Meet the Press" that 100,000 people had submitted new applications this weekend via the federal website serving 37 states. That's a big difference from last year, when only a handful of customers managed to enroll on the first day. 
 
 Burwell also said that a half-million people who already have coverage through the program were able to log into their accounts this time. 
 
 There were reports Saturday that returning customers had problems, but some of that may have been confusion trying to remember user names and passwords. 
 
 Administration spokesman Aaron Albright said Sunday he had not seen any indication of problems. 
 
 Burwell said call centers have taken 100,000 calls, another indication of consumer interest. 
 
 President Barack Obama noted the improvements. "HealthCare.gov works really well now," he said. 
 
 HealthCare.gov is an online marketplace that offers subsidized private coverage to people who don't have health insurance on the job. Because of political opposition and technical issues, the federal government is running the health insurance exchange in most states. 
 
 Thirteen states and Washington, D.C., are running their own markets. Washington state had problems Saturday with its exchange, which was generating inaccurate subsidy calculations. 
 
 Premiums, on average, appear to be stable this year. But experts say overall national numbers can mask big changes from state to state, and sometimes even within parts of a state. In particular, customers who already got covered this year are being advised to shop around to avoid significant cost increases. 
 
 With Congress fully under Republican control, the administration cannot afford another website meltdown. 
 
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 Health care website: https://www.healthcare.gov/ ||||| Getty Burwell: 100,000 new Obamacare applications 
 
 Secretary of Health and Human Services Sylvia Mathews Burwell said on Sunday 100,000 people submitted new applications for Obamacare in the first days of the second open enrollment period. 
 
 Speaking on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Burwell offered an update to the numbers provided Saturday when she said 23,000 applied in the first eight hours of the new open enrollment period. 
 
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 In addition to new applicants, 500,000 customers were able to log on to HealthCare.gov, and 1 million people have gone “window shopping” to compare insurance plans and prices over the past week. 
 
 The numbers offer a stark contrast to the first enrollment period a year ago when HealthCare.gov launched with severe technical problems that prevented people from applying. 
 
 Authors: ||||| AP Photo Obamacare Last fall’s HealthCare.gov ghosts could haunt 2015 sign-up The second year of Obamacare’s open enrollment begins Saturday. Will the site work this time? 
 
 The second year of Obamacare’s open enrollment begins Saturday, and unresolved problems from the first season are complicating the already daunting task of enrolling millions of uninsured and re-enrolling millions more. 
 
 The lingering challenges involve both flawed technology and public perception of the Affordable Care Act as the Supreme Court prepares to review yet another key provision. The first season actually beat enrollment expectations, despite its disastrous start. More than 7 million people have exchange plans, and about 8.7 million were added to Medicaid. Premium increases for 2015 have generally been modest, though not all states have announced them yet. But the distrust and opposition, as the midterm elections vividly illustrated, still runs deep. 
 
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 While consumers who click onto HealthCare.gov will see a cleaner, simpler application page, insurers still have headaches. They interact with the website’s so-called back end, which is supposed to tell carriers who signed up and to pay out Obamacare’s subsidies. 
 
 (From POLITICO Pro: Full health care coverage) 
 
 That part still doesn’t work as it should. Insurance industry sources say the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) had sorted through about 80 percent to 85 percent of existing accounts to make sure its records match those of insurers. The agency is not likely to be done by Saturday; the latest best-case scenario is for the job to be finished by Dec. 15. 
 
 The date is key because anyone currently covered who doesn’t either re-enroll or pro-actively opt out will automatically be re-enrolled in the same plan or the closest match for 2015. But with all the gaps in the system, consumers could find themselves in the wrong plan — or even enrolled in more than one plan. Nor will the health plans always know promptly if a customer dropped one plan and chose another (even though the “834s” — those initial enrollment files that nobody had ever heard of until they gummed things up last year — are pretty reliable now). 
 
 CMS has been using cumbersome workarounds to clear up the records and calculate subsidy payments. But it’s been messy, even without a wave of potentially millions of new enrollees added to the mix. The solution — a computer-facilitated automatic monthly reconciliation and payment process — fell by the wayside with last year’s rollout disaster. Insurers don’t expect it to come online until sometime next year. 
 
 (Also on POLITICO: Obama: 'The buck stops right here') 
 
 The administration, for its part, is much better prepared this fall to handle glitches. The tech SWAT team that made the frantic push to salvage the sign-up site last year is in the wings. Some are back at their regular Silicon Valley jobs, ready to swoop back in if they get the call from Washington. Others now work for the government, either toiling away at the new and improved HealthCare.gov or as part of a new White House-based cavalry of coders and software engineers ready to ride to a tech rescue anywhere the government needs them. 
 
 The website that serves as the primary enrollment portal for the Affordable Care Act was repaired last year, and by the end of the debut sign-up season it was working fairly well for consumers, although the pieces on which the insurance industry relies were incomplete. 
 
 Health officials working on the site on Sunday previewed for reporters a new “window shopping” feature that people should be able to use this week, to start checking out health plan options before enrollment opens. Officials said they’ve met their deadlines for testing, and should be ready to go next weekend. 
 
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 Another total meltdown is unlikely. But even less serious problems will catapult into the headlines given the first year’s calamity, when a faulty website nearly derailed President Barack Obama’s top domestic achievement. Any missteps this season will be magnified by the GOP. Having a slew of problems from last year only makes the job of the Obama administration, new Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell and supporters in the states more difficult. 
 
 HHS officials aren’t predicting perfection this year. But they and the many coders who helped in last year’s rescue do say they’ve done more testing this time around, and expect the site to work well. And if trouble comes, they’re better prepared. 
 
 “I’m cautiously optimistic about the site, but I definitely will be watching the news just like everybody else,” said Jason Huggins, a former Google employee who helped improve HealthCare.gov’s automated testing last fall. He’s been helping implement the retooled site, too — and he says he’d return to the trenches if summoned. 
 
 (Also on POLITICO: Can D.C. get something done? Fat chance) 
 
 “For a lot of us, when you hear the president needs your help, how do you say no?” he asked. “If you have a skill set and the country needs you, how do you say no? I expect a lot of people that I worked with would say yes again.” 
 
 Others who came to join the tech surge — an exhausting, intensive six-week 24/7 operation that went right through Thanksgiving — never left. They’ve moved from the rescue-squad headquarters at the DoubleTree hotel in suburban Columbia, Md., and are installed in downtown Washington offices. 
 
 Andy Slavitt, who at Optum led the contractors helping to fix the ailing website, is now a top-tier CMS official. A new “CEO” for HealthCare.gov has been brought on, an expert who helped get both Massachusetts and Connecticut’s exchanges up and running. 
 
 Ryan Panchadsaram, a Presidential Innovation Fellow called in last year, now works in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy as a deputy CTO. Paul Smith and Greg Gershman, both part of the original SWAT team, founded a private company, Ad Hoc LLC, which has been called in to help with digital projects like HealthCare.gov.
– After last year's dismal debut HealthCare.gov is feeling much better now, and is busily connecting Americans with health care plans as the second sign-up period opened yesterday, Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell said today. The site took in 100,000 new applications in its first 24 hours, reports Politico, saw 500,000 log in to their accounts, and 1 million more went "window-shopping" for plans. Call centers took 100,000 calls. Burwell said she expects "strong and healthy growth" this year—about another 2 million people to add to the 7 million already signed up, per the AP. A White House spokesman said today there was no indication of problems. "HealthCare.gov works really well now," said President Obama.