Senators are calling on two independent government watchdogs to launch a "thorough investigation" into the failed launch of the ObamaCare website, as officials scramble to correct the problems by the end of the month. 
 
 The lawmaker leading the charge for the new probe is North Carolina Sen. Kay Hagan, one of several Democrats up for re-election next year who has been sharply critical of the HealthCare.gov launch. Hagan is circulating a draft letter, obtained by Fox News, that urges the Government Accountability Office and the inspector general for the Department of Health and Human Services to dig deep into what went wrong. 
 
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 "These problems are simply unacceptable, and Americans deserve answers and swift solutions," the letter states. "Taxpayers are owed a full and transparent accounting of how the vendors contracted to build the site failed to launch it successfully. We strongly urge to you undertake a complete, thorough investigation to determine the causes of the design and implementation failures of healthcare.gov." 
 
 The letter poses a series of specific questions, including whether payments were withheld to any of the 55 contractors hired to build the site. The letter asks how projected costs have grown, and what the additional cost to taxpayers will be from bringing on contractors to fix the broken site. 
 
 Further, the letter asks why the contract was only opened up to a limited pool of contractors who originally bid on a 2007 contract. 
 
 The letter could get signatures from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. Democrats like Hagan claim to still support the law's intentions, but have been highly critical of the administration over the launch. 
 
 Several moderate Democrats facing re-election next year have backed calls to extend the end-of-March deadline for individuals to obtain insurance coverage, citing problems with the main exchange site. The Obama administration so far has urged patience, claiming they plan to have the site fully functional by the end of November -- and has announced no plans to extend the March 31, 2014, deadline . 
 
 The Hagan letter states that once the site is up and running, "we expect that millions of people, for the first time, will not have to worry whether they can see a doctor because of a pre-existing condition, and other important market reforms will protect the insured from the prospect of unaffordable medical bills. 
 
 "In the meantime, it is critical that we understand how and why the mechanism for reaching that goal -- healthcare.gov -- failed to launch as required on October 1, 2013." 
 
 Meanwhile, emerging reports about the meager enrollments figures to date are fueling calls to delay the sign-up deadline. 
 
 According to an insurance industry report, fewer than 50,000 Americans have so far bought a private health care plan on the ObamaCare site, far short of the half-million enrollees the administration wanted the first month. 
 
 The Department of Health and Human Services, though, said officials could not confirm the numbers. 
 
 "We have always anticipated that initial enrollment numbers would be low and increase over time," said agency spokeswoman Joanne Peters. "And, as we have said, the problems with the website will cause the numbers to be lower than initially anticipated." 
 
 Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, said the numbers build the case for delaying the law. 
 
 "Whether it's higher costs, fewer choices or simply website glitches, it's becoming more clear with each passing day that this law isn't ready for prime time and should be delayed," he said in a statement. ||||| Play Facebook 
 
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 The federal government is sending out emails starting Tuesday to invite 275,000 people who failed to enroll at the new health insurance website to try again. 
 
 
 
 The HealthCare.gov website is now working well enough so that people who started to create accounts and then gave up should be able to finish, says Julie Bataille, spokeswoman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which runs the site. 
 
 “While working to improve our system, we have been been conducting an analysis to identify people who tried and failed to create accounts,” Bataille told reporters in a telephone briefing. 
 
 “We have been messaging them to let them know they can now try again.” 
 
 Sure enough, the emails started landing Tuesday evening. 
 
 "Complete your enrollment: We can help," they read. "Our records show there was a problem setting up your Marketplace account at HealthCare.gov. Don't miss your opportunity to find out how much you could save on your health insurance." 
 
 Bataille says technicians worked over the three-day Veteran’s Day weekend to add more data storage and to make software fixes that “addressed dozens of outstanding issues.” These have “enhanced the user experience,’ she says. 
 
 
 
 “We want to make sure that ... their experience will be a positive one." 
 
 HealthCare.gov, the centerpiece of health reform efforts under the 2010 Affordable Care Act, fell apart as soon as it went live on Oct. 1. It was supposed to be a seamless, online system to allow people to comparison shop for health insurance policies, contrasting prices, and checking right away to see if they qualified for a generous federal government subsidy to buy a plan. 
 
 
 
 It has to take in details of a person’s income and employment, connect with state insurance regulators and various insurance companies, as well as the Internal Revenue Service to check income, the Department of Homeland Security to check for legal residency, and various other government departments. 
 
 Several different contractors put together parts of the system and when it went online, the parts didn’t work together. The result: Hardly anyone managed to sign up, critics said “I told you so” and Congress launched several investigations. 
 
 President Barack Obama has promised to fix it and appointed his new chief economic adviser, a management expert named Jeff Zients, to lead the repair effort. It’s on track to be running smoothly for ‘the vast majority of users” by the end of the month, Bataille says. 
 
 In the meantime, people can keep trying. This week, CMS will send out 275,000 emails. “Those are the individuals that were stuck in that initial enrollment period trying to create their accounts,” she says. 
 
 They'll be told it's safe to try again. "In the last several days, we've made a number of upgrades to resolve issues like the one you may have encountered with our system -- and hundreds of thousands of Americans have successfully created accounts since the Marketplace opened," the email reads. 
 
 "Note: It may take a few minutes for pages to load. If this happens, it may help to clear your browser’s history and cache, close the browser completely, and try again," it cautions. "Thanks for your patience. We're committed to making sure you get the quality, affordable coverage you need." 
 
 Federal officials say they’ll release their first estimates of how many people have managed to sign up on Healthcare.gov by the end of this week. They have tried to lower expectations. 
 
 "I can tell you our early enrollment numbers will be very low," Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said last week when she testified before a Senate committee. 
 
 
 
 The federal government is running the exchanges in 34 states. The rest are either running their own, or are getting federal help in operating one. 
 
 One analysis showed that 49,000 people had signed up in 12 of the states that have been running their own online exchanges. New York, one of the biggest states, said Tuesday it has signed up nearly 50,000 people. 
 
 “Since October 1st, 48,162 New Yorkers have enrolled in and 197,011 New Yorkers have completed the full application process and been determined eligible for low-cost health insurance plans,” the state department of health said in a statement. 
 
 The Congressional Budget Office has forecast that about 7 million people should sign up for health insurance on the state and federal exchanges by next year. Another 9 million or so should newly qualify for Medicaid, the state-federal health insurance plan for low income people, in states that have opted to expand the benefit. 
 
 More than 40 million Americans — 15 percent of the population — don’t have health insurance now. 
 
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 · Follow Maggie Fox on Facebook and on Twitter ||||| On Wednesday, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is set to grill several high-ranking administration technology officials about the problems affecting HealthCare.gov. 
 
 The software defects that ware making the Web site unstable with too much volume mean that some people face frozen computer screens when they try to enter information — and then get timeout errors, said the official with knowledge of the project. 
 
 Call centers have had problems, too. Within the network of 17 federally sponsored call locations staffed by more than 10,000 people, consumers are discovering that telephone representatives lack the authority to correct errors in online applications. And sometimes, consumers with more than routine questions are promised that specialists will call them back, but the calls never come. 
 
 Insurance companies, which have been pressing the White House for greater ability to sign up customers directly, are stuck at the moment, unable to complete enrollments. That is because they must connect with the federal online system to determine whether customers’ incomes qualify them for tax credits to help pay for their insurance — a part of the system that does not work. 
 
 According to the official, workers are trying to streamline the computer system so that it can handle outside queries from insurers and the call centers about whether people are eligible for subsidies. Technical workers are striving to have this part of the system working reliably within two to three weeks. 
 
 The work that remains to be done on the exchange is significant because the 2010 Affordable Care Act requires most Americans to have health insurance by Jan. 1. Under the law, the online marketplaces were supposed to be a central way for uninsured people who do not have access to insurance through a job to get coverage that is better and more affordable than most current individual policies. 
 
 In a telephone call with reporters earlier Tuesday, Bataille said that HHS is e-mailing about 275,000 consumers who have gotten stuck while trying to shop for and buy health plans. The e-mails encourage them to try again. 
 
 Asked whether the Web site could handle all those consumers if they logged on at once, Bataille replied, “That’s why we are sending this series of e-mails in waves.” 
 
 The CMS has said it has cut the waiting time for pages on the federal Web site from an average of eight seconds to one second and has reduced errors that have blocked consumers from 6 percent to 2 percent. 
 
 For some consumers, their frustration with the site has been compounded by their experiences with a call center. Lisa Chandler, 54, who lives with her husband outside Toledo, wanted to explore her new insurance options through the federal exchange. She had received a notice from her insurer that her health plan was ending and offering her a new one if she signed up by the end of this week. 
 
 After she was unable to complete an application on HealthCare.gov, she tried to contact a center three times and each time was told that a specialist would call back. No one did. 
 
 In Pennsylvania, Charles Roes­sler, 64, tried to apply three ways: online, through a call center and on paper. The retired computer salesman has decided on a health plan but hasn’t been able to sign up via any of the methods because no one has been able to verify his subsidy. 
 
 During his most recent attempt, on Monday, he asked a call center representative to delete duplicate applications but was told that the center lacked the authority. “We’re being told that you can go online or enroll through the call center,” he said. “Well, no, not really. . . . I’m just inches away from the finish line.”
– The Obama administration has pledged to get HealthCare.gov running smoothly by Nov. 30, but an insider tells the Washington Post that's looking like a pipe dream. For one thing, it can only deal with half the traffic it's supposed to handle—it runs into problems when 20,000 to 30,000 users try to get on simultaneously. Meanwhile, the top contractor behind the site, CGI Federal, has only been able to fix some 60% of the issues it's been working on. A health department official defends the progress: "The challenges we are addressing today are a snapshot of November 12, not November 30." Those involved in the process say Americans will have to turn to other enrollment methods if they want quick access to ObamaCare. But the government is showing more confidence: This week, officials began emailing 275,000 people whose initial attempts at enrollment didn't work, urging them to give it another try, NBC News reports. In other HealthCare.gov news: Insurance companies are looking to take matters into their own hands, asking the government for a way to bypass the system to take on those who qualify for subsidies. That would require access to federal information on people's subsidy entitlements, and officials are worried about privacy violations. Another option: Americans could estimate their subsidies with their insurers, leaving federal officials to confirm the figures in the future, the New York Times reports. Senators, led by Democrat Kay Hagan of North Carolina, are pressing for an independent investigation into the site's problems. In a letter obtained by Fox News, they're calling on the Government Accountability Office and the health department's inspector general to take action: "Taxpayers are owed a full and transparent accounting of how the vendors contracted to build the site failed to launch it successfully."