“Whatever!” -Sebelius
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius appeared before congress today to testify and apologize for the disastrous rollout of the Affordable Care Act website. “Hold me accountable for the debacle. I’m responsible,” Sebelius said. “We did not adequately do end-to-end testing,” she added.
When questioned by Greg Harper (R-MO) about whether the president bore any responsibility she replied, “Whatever, yes, he is the president.” Harper pressed her, asking if the president was ultimately responsible.
She said, “No, sir. We are responsible for the rollout…He’s the president of the United States. I have given him regular reports. I am responsible for the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. That’s what he asked me to do.”
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Sebelius also drew intense criticism from Republican Fred Upton (R-MI) after hearing of so many hundreds of thousands of people who will lose their healthcare plans. “They are now receiving termination notices, and for those who lose the coverage they like, they may also be losing faith in their government,” Upton said.
Sebelius later stated, “I am as frustrated and angry as anyone with the flawed launch of Healthcare.gov. So let me say directly to these Americans: You deserve better. I apologize.”
Healthcare.gov reportedly cost over $300 million dollars and was implemented using 10-year-old technology. The data center for the site also crashed last weekend, leaving people unable to register online at all. Insurers are getting faulty data that is totally unusable, which means they have no way of knowing who actually signed up for plans. The administration has called for a “tech surge,” asking Verizon wireless to work overtime fixing the broken site.
The Washington Post reported that an internal government memo revealed that the White House knew that the site was not ready for launch and that security controls hadn’t been adequately tested.
The president’s goal is to get 7 million people enrolled by 2014.
4 comments
I would say the pres is responsible for hiring an incompetent person to manage the project… as he has shown to do over and over and over… not impressed withe political dog and pony show today, not impressed with any of them. term limits and impeachment are what’s in order… the president obviously lied to help his reelection efforts, should be held to account for this lie. among several others.
Obama doing what he does best. Shoving people under the bus. Oh, and lying.
An apology? Wow, thanks. Everything is fine and dandy now.
F the whole administration. Dirty crooks.