Speaking in the White House Rose Garden, Obama said that “no one is madder than me” that the healthcare.gov site is not working as it should, “which means it’s going to get fixed.”
Obama admitted to being frustrated by the failed rollout of ObamaCare, but still defended and attempted to explain the Affordable Care Act — also known as ObamaCare — and the problems that have plagued the central website launched earlier this month to sign up consumers.
Speaking in the White House Rose Garden, with another carefully crafted backdrop of ObamaCare users, the president said “there’s no excuse” for the problems with the site.
He appealed to the public — a bit pathetically — to have patience and defended the product without offering any real answers to the very serious criticisms surrounding not just the rollout, but the costs associated with the site construction, the costs associated with the insurance, and amount of people being dropped from their existing policies.
For now, Obama said, consumers can “bypass the website,” and instead apply over the phone or by mail, though it is unclear whether or not those venues can offer the voter registration vehicles the Obama administration took such pains to include in the failed site.
If not, they can always tap the radical founder of the disgraced group ACORN — Wade Rathke — who is now helping with the ObamaCare rollout, no doubt to pick up the slack left from the HealthCare.gov site failure.
The president’s comments from the Rose Garden amounted to the most detailed explanation from the administration to date about what is going wrong with the site and what’s being done to fix it. It was also the most direct acknowledgement from the president that the site is not living up to expectations.
The president said the site “hasn’t worked as smoothly as it was supposed to work” and “nobody’s more frustrated by that than I am.”
“There’s no sugarcoating it. The website has been too slow. People have been getting stuck during the application process,” Obama said. “There’s no excuse for the problems. … These problems are getting fixed.”
Obama said his administration is doing “everything we can possibly do” to get the site — HealthCare.gov — up and running properly. He said a team of experts from the private sector has been called in to help, which will add to the already-outrageous cost associated with building the failed site. People’s Pundit Daily has confirmed and fact-checked upwards of $500 million dollars, thus far, associated with the cost of HealthCare.gov.
Obama said users, in the meantime, can download an application and apply by mail, or use the phone number now posted on the HealthCare.gov website to apply by phone.
“The Affordable Care Act is not just a website. It’s much more,” Obama said from the Rose Garden, flanked by Americans who have signed up for coverage through the troubled system.
However, the Consumer Reports in a review of HealthCare.gov and the ObamaCare law in general, have said consumers who are overwhelmed by the glitches should “stay away” from the site for “at least another month.”
Obama stressed that there’s still time for the problems to be addressed, though in reality, time to sign up enough young, healthy paying Americans is running out before the system enters an insurance death spiral.
The president spoke just as administration officials quietly began to come forward with details about what went wrong with HealthCare.gov.
The Department of Health and Human Services on Sunday posted a blog on its site with some preliminary statistics and an assurance to Americans that officials are “working around the clock” and “committed to doing better.” The department vowed a “tech surge” to address the problems.
But lawmakers, experts, and pundits on both sides of the aisle have publicly complained about the rollout, and wondered whether the tech team will be able to fix the widespread problems in time.
House lawmakers are also turning up the pressure on HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to testify. The House Energy and Commerce Committee has scheduled a hearing for Thursday, but so far, the Secretary Sebelius has ignored requests that she appear and refused to be held accountable in any manner.
In a bit of a twist, and perhaps without permission, Illinois Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin told “Fox News Sunday” that, “Ultimately, Secretary Sebelius will testify.”
The HHS blog says roughly 500,000 applications for coverage have been submitted. It also states that healthcare.gov has had roughly 19 million unique visits, though it’s unclear how many have actually enrolled.
The Republican National Committee on Monday sent a Freedom of Information Act request to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for that information.
People’s Pundit Daily has poured over the numbers and has taken into account past reports, leaks from civil service workers at HHS — among other factors — and now is reporting that the ObamaCare enrollment numbers are far worse than is being reported.
