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"Humor really is the best medicine, at least for an ailing healthcare website.\nTraffic to Healthcare.gov was 40% higher on Tuesday than the day prior, after President Obama made a surprise appearance on web series Between Two Ferns with comedian Zach Galifianakis to promote the federal online insurance marketplace. The traffic boost was announced on Twitter by Tara McGuinness, senior communications advisor for the White House.\nSee also: How President Obama Ended Up on 'Between Two Ferns'\n\nFunnyordie video has 11 million views. http://t.co/a7HUExG0vg traffic for yesterday was up almost 40% from Monday.\n\u2014 Tara McGuinness (@HealthCareTara) March 12, 2014\n\nIn a separate tweet, Healthcare.gov said that it received nearly 900,000 visits on Tuesday:\n\n890k+ visits to http://t.co/zGLCNOxaSv on Tues, up 40% from Mon. Lots of consumers shopping to get covered before 3/31. #GetCoveredNow\n\u2014 HealthCare.gov (@HealthCareGov) March 12, 2014\n\nFunny or Die, which hosts Between Two Ferns, posted the video early Tuesday morning. A rep for the humor site told Mashable that it topped 1 million views after just three hours and 25 minutes, making it the most successful start to a video in its history. \nThe initial idea for the video came in the summer of last year when reps for Funny or Die, along with other creatives and celebrities, were invited to the White House to talk with the Obama administration about ways to promote healthcare to consumers, and particularly young people. \n\"The President talked to the creative community about the Affordable Care Act and some of the challenges facing it trying to get the word out,\" Mike Farah, president of production at Funny Or Die and an executive producer on Between Two Ferns, told Mashable in an earlier interview. \"The law works even better when young people sign up for it.\"\n\nDon't have health care? You should probably get on that. Go to http://t.co/yynlcjc8B6 &amp; #GetCoveredNow\n\u2014 Funny Or Die (@funnyordie) March 11, 2014\n\nHealthcare.gov had a troubled start in October as technical glitches prevented many from being able to access the site, let alone sign up for healthcare. The administration claimed the site had finally been fixed in early December, though some still complained of long delays loading pages. \nU.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told reporters late Tuesday that 4.2 million Americans had enrolled in health plans through Healthcare.gov as of the end of February. The open enrollment period is scheduled to end on March 31.\nHave something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.\n      window._msla=window.loadScriptAsync||function(src,id){if(document.getElementById(id))return;var js=document.createElement('script');js.id=id;js.src=src;document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0].parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);};\n_msla(\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\",\"twitter_jssdk\");"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2014/03/12/between-two-ferns-healthcare/>