President Barack Obama, accompanied by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, announces a revamped contraception policy on Feb. 10, 2012, in Washington
President Obama’s top official in charge of the Obamacare rollout had few answers for CNN’s Sanjay Gupta when he questioned her about the glitches plaguing HealthCare.gov in an interview Tuesday night.
“We are not at all satisfied with the workings of the website,” Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said. She said the volume of people coming to the site “caused some problems but it also exposed some additional problems.”
Sebelius would not answer questions about reports of prelaunch testing that may have signaled problems with the site before it opened to the public, nor would she give specifics on how many people have signed up for health insurance through the HealthCare.gov portal. “What we can tell you is that thousands of people have signed up,” she said, offering that more than half a million accounts have been created on the site. She declined to say if there is a possibility that the individual mandate requiring Americans to buy insurance or face a penalty might be postponed because of the technical problems many have faced in purchasing insurance through the federal Web portal.
Sebelius said the President was not aware of glitches on the site until after the Oct. 1 launch. She would not say if she had discussed calls for her resignation with the President.
“We have a product and the product really works. We have created a market where there wasn’t a market,” Sebelius said.
“We’re early in the first quarter in football terms.”