U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Fla., took a senior member of the Obama administration to task this week over the continued technical problems plaguing the marketplace website set up under President Barack Obamas health care law.
Marilyn Tavenner, the administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), testified before the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee on Tuesday to offer some perspective on the issues plaguing Healthcare.gov.
I want to apologize to you that the website is not working as well as it should, Tavenner told the committee. I want to assure you that HealthCare.gov can be fixed, and we are working around the clock to give you the experience that you deserve.
That wasnt good enough for Buchanan, who is the only Floridian on the committee. You thought the site was working, Buchanan told Tavenner. Didnt you say that you thought that the site was working?
I think weve seen a lot of improvements with the ACA, yes, sir, Tavenner replied.
Buchanan ripped the website launch as a public relations nightmare and continued to pour it on.
This is just an incredibly bad roll-out, Buchanan said. Theres a lot that needs to be done. I cant imagine you can actually think the site is working.
A prominent liberal group fired back at Buchanan, insisting the Florida congressman was shedding crocodile tears over the botched site launch.
Its really rich for Republicans to be shedding crocodile tears over the glitches in the ACA website when they have done nothing for four years but try to impede, repeal and defund the law and root for its failure, said Brad Woodhouse, the president of Americans United for Change, on Tuesday. After voting repeatedly to leave uninsured Americans with no affordable coverage options at all and to leave insured Americans susceptible again to the worst insurance industry practices, are we really to believe Congressman Buchanan gives a spit that Americans are having trouble enrolling in a health plan?
This is a transparent attempt by Republicans to score political points around road bumps in the health laws implementation and distract from the fact that they just left 120,000 Americans without jobs by shutting down the government in the name of Obamacare, Woodhouse insisted. Its not fooling anyone, and it takes a lot of nerve. If Congressman Buchanan were truly concerned about how smoothly the health laws implementation is going, he would stop throwing monkey wrenches into the process every chance he gets. You could call what Buchanan and the Republicans are engaging in hypocrisy but that would be an insult to hypocrites.
The GOPs phony concerns notwithstanding, we have every confidence that the administrations tech surge under way will fix what needs fixing and open up the doors for even more uninsured Americans to finally get the affordable, quality care they deserve, Woodhouse said in conclusion. Of course, the website glitches dont affect the majority of Americans who already have insurance. They still have the peace of mind knowing that ACAs new benefits and consumer protections from insurance industry abuse has added many layers to their health security.
Reach Kevin Derby at kderby@sunshinestatenews.com.
