Obamacare's success rests on attracting uninsured millennials

(CBS News) MIDDLETOWN, N.Y. - The government is still trying to heal its troubled website, healthcare.gov, which has been overwhelmed by millions of people trying to enroll in the new health-insurance exchanges. Enrollment functions will be unavailable during overnight hours this weekend while technicians do their work.

Those issues are taking place while the government takes new approaches trying to court millennials to enroll.

Special Section: Obamacare Kicks Off

When pizzeria manager Kristen Aveis turned 27 earlier this year, she was too old to be covered by her parents' insurance, so she bought catastrophic coverage from private insurer Empire BlueCross BlueShield. At $163 a month she says it's all she could afford.

"Anything billed through the hospital, any major medical expense that was billed to a hospital was covered," said Aveis. "The fine print in that was that no doctors' fees were covered."

That fine print became clear to Aveis when she faced thousands of dollars in doctors' fees and collections notes after a series of tests from a health scare which turned out to be a false alarm.

"I paid about $10,000 out of pocket in 2012 for those procedures," said Aveis. "I really, I had no idea it was going to be that much money."

Right now, she has no coverage.

"I said I can't afford to pay, you know, $200 a month almost to health insurance and also pay all these bills at the same time," she said. "The only thing that exists that will be affordable for me is something from the Affordable Care Act from the New York health exchange."

According to the Kaiser Foundation, 61 percent of adults say they're uninsured because they're unemployed or the cost is too high.

The government plans to enroll about 7 million Americans in health-care exchanges that offer subsidized health insurance by next spring. But in order for it to work, 2.7 million young adults like Aveis must be recruited to offset costs of older Americans who are less healthy.

Aveis tried to shop in the exchange this week for a plan in her $250 price range but, like many, experienced problems online. She'll keep trying until she's covered.