White House press secretary Jay Carney on Wednesday acknowledged a very rocky Obamacare rollout as “unacceptable,” but maintained that extensive glitches that have left hundreds of thousands of people struggling to enroll in health care exchanges online didn’t justify axing the program outright.
“Health care reform is more than a website,” Carney told reporters at a daily press briefing. “Across the country, people are getting health insurance. Although the glitches are unacceptable, so is the idea of leaving millions of Americans on their own, including families across the country who now have access to health care they did not have the two weeks ago.”
The New York Times reported this week that efforts to fix the troubled healthcare.gov portal could take anywhere between two weeks to two months. As criticism mounts from both sides about the government’s ability to open the exchanges, administration officials have remained tight-lipped about the true number of enrollees so far. Asked again Wednesday about when the figures would be released, Carney said no earlier than mid-November.
