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Perhaps overshadowed by the federal government shutdown, Tuesday also marked the first day when Americans were able to shop for health insurance using Affordable Care Act exchanges. That day, 2.8 million people visited the federal website HealthCare.gov.

The site for the D.C. Health Link had 15,452 unique visitors on Tuesday, with 4,121 individuals and families making accounts, as well as 136 employers (businesses with fewer than 50 full-time employees). Numbers for yesterday weren’t released.

Richard Sorian, director of communications, education and outreach for D.C. Health Link, said these numbers were “well in excess of what we expected.”

“We think it’s real evidence of the pent up desire for affordable health insurance in the District,” he said, noting that there are around 42,000 people in the city without health insurance. “What we expected was that a large number of people would come and pretty much window shop,” the reason being that enrollment isn’t required until December 15 for coverage to start on January 1, 2014.

Though popular, D.C. Health Link’s arrival didn’t go exactly as planned. The week before the site launched, the group announced that the function that makes “Medicaid eligibility determinations and calculates tax credits for purchase of private insurance” wouldn’t be rolled out “due to a high error rate discovered through extensive systems testing.” Until this is fixed, eligibility will be determined offline and followups with eligible people arranged.

Sorian said they came out publicly with the glitch to let people know “there’s a work around.”

“We’ve had much less concern expressed,” Sorian said of the problem following the announcement. He said D.C. Health Link is and will be tracking public concerns and opinions through social media.

“It helps us identify glitches or problems that we can fix right away, or that we need to get right on to,” he said.

Sorian said the commentary about the site on Tuesday was “very positive”: “There were some people who said it took much longer than they expected. Other people said it took much less time than they expected.”

The Post profiled one family who attempted to enroll on the first day at Mary’s Center in Petworth, but ran into technical glitches that ended up deleting all their information.

Despite taking the time off work and spending hours filling out paperwork, [Mohammad] Goni said he wasn’t disappointed with the day’s outcome. He was happy to have spent the time at Mary’s Center because it gave him the opportunity to understand the health insurance options available to his family.

“We are going to come back next month,” Goni said. “They told me they will be prepared.”

D.C. Health Link will hold an information session Thursday at the Dorothy I. Height Benning Library, one of several planned for October and November at libraries and CVS stores.

Sorian said the basics of the program will be covered and questions will be answered about benefits and patient protections that are available, the rules, and everything else one would wonder about. Experts, or “assisters,” will be there to provide one-on-one help.

“As time goes forward, they’ll be focused more on enrollment,” Sorian said of the sessions.