FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Counselors helping people use thefederal government's online health exchange are giving mixedreviews to the updated site, with some zipping through theapplication process while others are facing the same old sputtersand even crashes.

The Obama administration had promised a vastly improved shoppingexperience on healthcare.gov by the end of November, and Monday wasthe first business day since the date passed.

Brokers and online assisters in Utah say three of every fourpeople successfully signed up for health coverage on the onlinewithin an hour of logging in. A state official overseeing NorthDakota's navigators said he had noticed improvements in the site,as did organizations helping people sign up in parts of Alabama andWisconsin.

But staffers at an organization in South Florida and a hospitalgroup with locations in Iowa and Illinois said they have seen nomajor improvements from the federal website, which 36 states arerelying on.

Amanda Crowell, director of revenue cycle for UnityPointHealth-Trinity, which has four hospitals in Iowa and Illinois, saidthe organization's 15 enrollment counselors did not see a markedimprovement on the site.

"We had very high hopes for today, but those hopes were verymuch quashed," said Crowell. She said out of a dozen attemptsonline only one person was able to get to the point of planselection, though the person decided to wait.

The site appeared to generally run smoothly early Monday morningbefore glitches began slowing people down. By 10 a.m., federalhealth officials deployed a new queue system that stalls newvisitors on a waiting page so that those further along in theprocess can finish their application with fewer problems.

About 750,000 had visited the site by Monday night — aboutdouble the traffic for a typical Monday, according to figures fromthe Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Roberta Vann, a certified application counselor at the HamiltonHealth Center, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, said the site workedwell for her Monday morning but she became frustrated later whenthe site went down.

"You can get to a point, but it does not allow you to select anyplans, you can't get eligibility (information). It stops there,"she said. "The thought of it working as well as it was didn't lastlong."

In South Florida, John Foley and his team of navigators wereonly able to successfully enroll one of a handful of returnapplicants who came to their office before glitches started,including wonky estimates for subsidy eligibility. He worried abouthow they would fare with the roughly 50 other appointmentsscheduled later in the week.

Although frustrated, most were not deterred, he said.

"These are people that have policies going away, who have healthproblems. These are people that are going to be very persistent,"said Foley, an attorney and certified counselor for Legal AidSociety of Palm Beach County.

Despite the Obama administration's team of technicians workingaround the clock, it's not clear if the site will be able to handlethe surge of applicants expected by the Dec. 23 deadline to enrollfor coverage starting at the beginning of the year. Many navigatorsalso say they're concerned the bad publicity plaguing the troubledwebsite will prevent people from giving the system another try.

"There's a trust level that we feel like we broke with them. Wetold them we were here to help them and we can't help them," saidValerie Spencer, an enrollment counselor at Sarah Bush LincolnCenter, a small regional hospital in the central Illinois city ofMattoon.

Federal health officials acknowledged the website is still awork in progress. They've also acknowledged the importance offixing back-end problems as insurers struggle to processapplications because of incomplete or inaccurate data. Even whenconsumers think they've gone through the whole process, theirinformation may not get to the insurer without problems.

"We do know that things are not perfect with the site. We willcontinue to make improvements and upgrades," said Julie Bataille,communications director for the Centers for Medicare and MedicaidServices.

In less than an hour Monday, Starla Redmon, 58, of Paris, Ill.,was able to successfully get into a health plan with help from anenrollment counselor. Redmon, who juggles two part-time jobs andhas been uninsured for four years, said she was surprised thewebsite worked so well after hearing reports about itsproblems.

"Everything she typed in, it went through," said Redmon, whochose a bronze plan and will pay about $75 a month after a taxcredit. "It was the cheapest plan I could go with."

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Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers CarlaK. Johnson in Chicago; Chris Tomlinson in Austin, Texas; CatherineLucey in Des Moines, Iowa; Peter Jackson in Harrisburg, Pa.; ScottBauer in Madison, Wis.; James MacPherson in Bismarck, N.D.; BradyMcCombs in Salt Lake City; and Phillip Rawls in Montgomery,Ala.