Troubled Obamacare website enrolled fewer than 50,000 in October: WSJ

(Reuters) - Fewer than 50,000 Americans were able to sign up for new Obamacare health insurance plans through the error-plagued HealthCare.gov website serving 36 states, falling far short of the federal government's target, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.

Citing two people familiar with the matter, the Journal reported that the number represented sign-ups since the October 1 launch of new insurance marketplaces under President Barack Obama's healthcare reform.

"We cannot confirm these numbers," said Erin Shields Britt, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, in a statement. "More generally, we have always anticipated that initial enrollment numbers would be low and increase over time."

If accurate, the numbers fall far short of government expectations for nearly 500,000 sign-ups for HealthCare.gov in October.

The Obama administration is due to release national enrollment numbers sometime this week.

(Reporting by Michele Gershberg, additional reporting by Roberta Rampton; Editing by Sandra Maler)