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The Obama administration will grant extra time to Americans who say they are unable to enroll in health care plans through the federal insurance marketplace by the deadline set for the end of March, Fox News confirmed Tuesday.

All consumers who have begun to apply for coverage on HealthCare.gov, but who do not finish by Monday, will have until about mid-April to ask for an extension, federal officials told the Washington Post.

The Washington Post reported that users will have a chance to check a box on the website indicating they tried to enroll before the deadline, though the government will not try to determine whether the person actually made an effort to sign up.

"This is probably the first of many (extensions)," Chris Stirewalt told Megyn Kelly Tuesday on "The Kelly File."

"This is the first nod to a dire political situation," Stirewalt added.

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus pounced on the extension, calling it another delay for a "failed health care law."

Another day, another ObamaCare delay from the same Obama administration that wont work with Republicans to help Americans suffering from the unintended consequences of the Democrats failed health care law," Priebus said in a statement. "Democrats in leadership may say they are doubling down on ObamaCare but you have to wonder how many more unilateral delays their candidates running in 2014 can withstand.

Many states and the federal government experienced technical problems with the enrollment websites, but implementation of the federal Affordable Care Act has been a relative disaster in Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, Oregon and Vermont.

Rather than focusing on meeting enrollment targets, officials in those states find themselves consumed with replacing top officials, cancelling contracts with software companies, dealing with state or federal investigations, and spending tens of millions of dollars on fixes and new contractors. The core of the problem has been the difficulty in building an online health insurance marketplace that syncs up with myriad state and federal databases.

Early projections for those five states were to sign up a combined 800,000 Americans for private health insurance coverage by March 31, 11 percent of the Obama administration's original target for national enrollment. Yet with just days to go before the six-month enrollment period ends, achieving 25 percent of that target would be considered a success.

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Obama administration extends health care enrollment deadline