White House declares victory on fixing healthcare websiteTwo months after the disastrous launch of a website that is a key component of President Barack Obama's healthcare law, administration officials said on Sunday they had met their goal of getting the HealthCare.gov site running smoothly but warned that it needs more fixes.

Obama adviser Jeffrey Zients said a five-week emergency "tech surge" had doubled the capacity of the online health insurance portal that is crucial to helping millions of people shop for insurance plans, while making it more responsive and less prone to errors.

The administration said the effort's key improvement was to increase HealthCare.gov's capacity to 50,000 simultaneous users, which would allow the site to handle a minimum of 800,000 users per day.But Zients also warned that peak traffic volumes during the coming weeks could eclipse the new capacity as consumers rush to sign up before a Dec. 23 deadline for coverage that begins Jan. 1. That could delay some people from completing online applications for subsidized health coverage.

Officials also acknowledged that the site still may not operate smoothly for some visitors, even when traffic volumes are within its capabilities.

Even so, officials said, the site is dramatically better than when it was launched on Oct. 1. It was overwhelmed by users in a debacle that embarrassed Obama, fueled Republicans' complaints about the Democratic president's healthcare overhaul, and threatened to make his signature domestic achievement a drag on Democrats heading into the 2014 elections, when control of Congress will be up for grabs.

The bottom line: HealthCare.gov on Dec. 1 is night and day from where it was on Oct. 1," Zients told reporters a day after the administration's self-imposed Nov. 30 deadline for making the website operate properly for the "vast majority" of users.

"We've widened the system's on-ramp - it now has four lanes instead of one or two," he said. "We have a much more stable system that is reliably open for business."

The issue is really the management capacity of the Obama administration," said Robert Blendon, a Harvard University expert on healthcare policy and public opinion. "If the website really is still working a week from now, it'll make people feel that at least they have the capacity to turn things around and move ahead."

But a repeat of problems that plagued the site's launch could leave hundreds of thousands of people without coverage and deal a staggering blow to Obama's legacy and the 2014 election prospects of congressional Democrats, already on the defensive over the program's recent problems.

Republicans, who view the 2010 law as an unacceptable expansion of government that will limit healthcare choices and kill jobs, were quick on Sunday to say the administration overstated gains on the website.

"Have they made some progress? Yes. They brought in some private-sector folks to try to get the functionality up," Representative Mike Rogers of Michigan said on NBC's "Meet the Press." But, he said, "It still doesn't function right."

Democrats sounded a cautious note. Some party members have called for a delay of the "individual mandate," which requires Americans to be enrolled in coverage by March 31 or pay a penalty.

"This is going to take some time before it's up and kicking and in full gear," Representative Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, said on "Meet the Press."

Asked whether the individual mandate still needs to be delayed, Van Hollen replied: "As of today, no ... let's see how this is working."

Anecdotal evidence suggested few problems with the website as of midday Sunday.