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Washington (CNN) -- If only this was just a Halloween trick.

Visitors trying to log on to the Obamacare website Thursday morning saw the same stubborn phrase that has roiled users for weeks: "The system is down at the moment."

It's been almost a full month since the HealthCare.gov website launched, riddled with technical problems despite a series of advance warning signs. And even after a chorus of apologies out of Washington, it may be another month before everything's running smoothly.

Vice President Joe Biden became the highest-ranking administration official to apologize Wednesday for the botched rollout.

"We assumed that it was up and ready to run," he told CNN's sister network HLN. "But the good news is although it's not -- and we apologize for that -- we are confident by the end of November it will be, and there'll still be plenty of time for people to register and get online."

Obamacare site down for Sebelius hearing

Sebelius apologizes for website flaws

Speaking soon after the Health and Human Services secretary testified before Congress on Wednesday, President Obame took responsibility for fixing the troubled Obamacare site. "I'm not happy about it and neither are a lot of Americans who need health care," Obama said at a Boston rally. "There is no excuse for it and I take full responsibility for making sure it gets fixed ASAP. We are working overtime to improve it every day."

Amid Republican calls for her resignation, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius provided a personal mea culpa Wednesday as she testified before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. "In these early weeks, access to HealthCare.gov has been a miserably frustrating experience for way too many Americans," she said. Speaking directly to Americans confronting the site problems, Sebelius added: "You deserve better. I apologize. I'm accountable to you for fixing these problems."

Marilyn Tavenner is the administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, which is part of HHS. Tavenner testified Tuesday before the House Ways and Means Committee about the Obamacare enrollment website and became the first administration official to apologize for the site's performance problems. "I want to apologize to you that the website does not work as well as it should," she said, adding that HealthCare.gov "can and will be fixed."

Rep. Fred Upton, R-Michigan, is the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, the first congressional committee to hold hearings on the troubled Obamacare enrollment site. Upton opened Wednesday's committee hearing by saying news about Obamacare "seems to get worse by the day." "Americans are scared," he said. At a previous hearing, Upton called the launch of the website "nothing short of a disaster."

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-California, is the top Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Waxman said Wednesday that "the worst abuses of the insurance industry will be halted" by Obamacare. The California Democrat said the health care law's reforms mean better plans are available at lower premiums, and he urged his Republican colleagues to "stop hyperventilating" about problems with the website.

Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Michigan, sits on the House Energy and Commerce Committee and is also the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. On Wednesday, Rogers accused Sebelius of putting the private information of Americans at risk by failing to properly test security measures on the Obamacare enrollment site. "This is a completely unacceptable level of security," he said. "You know it's not secure."

Rep. Steve Scalise, R-Louisiana, leads the Republican Study Committee, a caucus of conservatives in the House of Representatives. Scalise has an undergraduate degree in computer science and is a former systems engineer. At last week's hearing, Scalise told witnesses, "There's a saying in computer programming: 'Garbage in, garbage out.'"

Rep. Frank Pallone, D-New Jersey, made waves on Twitter when he called last week's hearing on the Obamacare enrollment site's problems a "monkey court." Pallone made the comment when a Republican lawmaker at the hearing interrupted Pallone and asked him to yield his remaining allotted time to speak.

Cheryl Campbell is a senior vice president of CGI Federal, a contractor for the troubled website. "In principle, it worked," Campbell said at last week's hearing when asked by a lawmaker about the product her company delivered for use by the public on October 1. "It's not working great, and we're working to improve it. But it is enrolling people." After Campbell testified last week, CNN obtained a confidential September 2013 report from CGI to CMS that warned of a number of open risks and issues for the site even as company executives were testifying publicly that the project had achieved key milestones.

Andrew Slavitt is group executive vice president of Optum/QSSI, another contractor for the site. "The system didn't receive adequate end-to-end testing," Slavitt told lawmakers last week.

Lynn Spellecy, corporate counsel of website contractor Equifax Workforce Solutions, testified before Congress last week.

John Lau, program director of website contractor Serco, appeared before the House Energy and Commerce Committee last week.

Rep. Dave Camp, R-Michigan, is the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. On Tuesday, Camp raised concerns about the administration's projection of initial low enrollment in Obamacare's new exchanges. "I fear we can see a fundamental breakdown of the insurance market where premiums will skyrocket, pricing millions of Americans out of health care," Camp said to CMS Administrator Marilyn Tavenner.

Rep. Sander Levin, D-Michigan, is the top Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee.

Rep. Aaron Schock, R-Illinois, confronted Tavenner on Tuesday with anecdotal evidence from a constituent about changes to the individual insurance market linked to the implementation of Obamacare, changes that undermine Obama's oft-repeated pledge that "if you like your plan, you can keep your plan." "She has health insurance that she likes. She's been paying her premium. She wants to keep it. But she can't," Schock said. "Isn't that a lie?"

Rep. Bill Pascrell, D-New Jersey lambasted Republicans at Tuesday's House Ways and Means hearing for choosing to pile on the website woes instead of working with Democrats to improve Obamacare. Pascrell pointed out that his party worked with the GOP to improve the Bush administration's Medicare prescription drug benefit even though Democrats opposed the new program. "We lost the policy fight" then but chose to help make the program work instead of trying to discredit or undermine it. "How many of you stood up to do that?" the Democrat asked of his GOP colleagues, "None. Zero. Zero."

Jeff Zients, former acting director of the White House Office of Budget and Management, has been tapped by the administration to provide advice to HHS as the federal agency works to resolve the problems with the Obamacare enrollment site.

Key players in the health care hearings

Key players in the health care hearings

Key players in the health care hearings

Key players in the health care hearings

Key players in the health care hearings

Key players in the health care hearings

Key players in the health care hearings

Key players in the health care hearings

Key players in the health care hearings

Key players in the health care hearings

Key players in the health care hearings

Key players in the health care hearings

Key players in the health care hearings

Key players in the health care hearings

Key players in the health care hearings

Key players in the health care hearings

Key players in the health care hearings

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Key players in the health care hearings

Secy. Sebelius in the hot seat

That mea culpa came after Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius apologized for the "miserably frustrating" problems during a 3 1/2-hour congressional grilling. She said she made a mistake when she told President Barack Obama that HealthCare.gov was "ready to go" for its October 1 launch.

Sebelius promised a "vast majority" of consumers will have an easier time shopping online for health insurance under Obamacare by the end of November.

Analysis: Sebelius deals with a difficult day

"In these early weeks, access to HealthCare.gov has been a miserably frustrating experience for way too many Americans, including many who have waited years, in some cases their entire lives, for the security of health insurance," Sebelius said.

She echoed the overall administration stance -- that a team of experts is scrambling to fix the website's errors.

To the frustrated users who have had problems, she said: "You deserve better. I apologize. I'm accountable to you for fixing these problems."

5 things we learned from Sebelius hearing

Obama tried to log on

Biden said he didn't even bother logging on to the Obamacare site.

"Actually, the President tried to get online, and my daughter tried to get online," he said. "I did not, because it was clear that I was not getting online."

Obama himself acknowledged that too many people "have gotten stuck, and I am not happy about it."

"There's no excuse for it," the President said. "And I take full responsibility for making sure it gets fixed ASAP."

Glass half full?

Sebelius said the sweeping health care program has delivered on its promise to provide affordable health care coverage. Thousands have been able to access the website to look at new health coverage options that will give them security of knowing they won't go bankrupt if they get sick, she said.

RNC Chairman: 'The President lied'

Sebelius: 'Hold me accountable'

Obamacare under fire

Who is Kathleen Sebelius?

Republicans have called for Sebelius to be fired for the Obamacare problems, but a White House spokesman said Wednesday that Obama has "complete confidence" in her.

"She took responsibility for many of the problems that are evident with the (Obamacare) website, but she also deserves credit for the other aspects of the Affordable Care Act implementation that have gone well," spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters.

In fact, Obama tried to turn the tables on Republican opponents of his signature health care reforms, challenging them to come up with helpful ideas instead of undermining the federal law.

"Anyone defending the remnants of the old, broken system -- as if it was working for people -- anybody who thinks we shouldn't finish the job of making the health care system work for everybody ... those folks should have to explain themselves," he said.

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation website, 15.4 million people had individual health care coverage in 2011, representing about 5% of the population. The vast majority of Americans have coverage through their employer, Medicare, Medicaid or other public providers.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said Tuesday that "a significant portion" of the 5% of people with individual coverage will end up paying less for better policies when they shop around in the new exchanges.

Early warning signs

Some of the criticism surrounding the website's launch has to do with what Obama and other officials knew -- and when they knew it.

CNN has learned the administration received stark warnings a month before the launch that the Obamacare site was not ready to go live, according to a confidential report. The caution, from the main contractor CGI Federal, warned of risks and issues for HealthCare.gov, even as company executives were testifying publicly the project was on track.

Administration was warned before site launch

Sebelius told the House committee the outside contractors who built the website never recommended delaying this month's launch. But she conceded that "we did not adequately do end-to-end testing."

The contracts with the private companies working on the Obamacare website -- which amount to $174 million so far, with more bills due well into 2014 -- do not have "built-in penalties" allowing her department to charge them for disappointing or faulty work, Sebelius said. But Sebelius said the agency will not pay for incomplete work.

Security questions

Republican Rep. Mike Rogers of Michigan, who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, accused Sebelius of putting the private information of Americans at risk by failing to properly test security measures on the website.

"This is a completely unacceptable level of security," he said. "You know it's not secure."

Sebelius responded that testing occurs regularly, and she told Rogers she would get back to him on whether any end-to-end security test of the entire system has ever occurred. Rogers said he knows there have been no such comprehensive security tests.

Memo warned of high security risk at health care website

An internal government memo obtained by CNN on Wednesday that was written days before the website launched warned of a "high" security risk because of a lack of testing.

"Due to system readiness issues, the (security control assessment) was only partly completed," said the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services memo. "This constitutes a risk that must be accepted and mitigated to support the Marketplace Day 1 operations."

Sebelius told CNN last week that Obama didn't know of the problems with the site -- even though insurance companies had complained and the site crashed during a pre-launch test run -- until after it went live.

A senior administration official said Obama now gets a "nightly readout" with the latest Obamacare statistics and an update of the website's status.

More: What else could go wrong with Obamacare?

CNN's Brianna Keilar, Joe Johns, Gloria Borger, Kevin Bohn, Lisa Desjardins and Z. Byron Wolf contributed to this report.