The folks at CBS News are clearly unhappy with how ObamaCare is going.
After reporting on a Dallas man that tried for a week to sign up without any success on Tuesday's Evening News, CBS This Morning Wednesday featured a segment tearing the program apart with Jan Crawford saying "the website’s launch has been nothing short of disastrous" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
NORAH O’DONNELL, HOST: And Congress gets a status report this morning on the Affordable Care Act. The Healthcare.gov website opened more than a week ago. While millions of Americans have tried to sign up, but only a handful have been able to register for insurance because of problems with the website. It keeps shutting down. Well the House Oversight committee wants to know why. Jan Crawford is on Capitol Hill. Jan, good morning.
JAN CRAWFORD: Good morning, Norah. Good morning, Charlie. You know, administration officials who are in charge of implementing and enforcing all of this are going to be on the hot seat here on Capitol Hill this morning. I talked to chairman Darrell Issa last night, and he told me he plans to ask how and why this chaos could have happened, and he’s not the only one talking about the disarray.
A number of late night comedians were then shown making jokes about ObamaCare’s implementation.
CRAWFORD: In the past week, the president’s signature achievement has become the butt of late night jokes. […]
CRAWFORD: No one knows how many people have managed to enroll. The administration refuses to release those numbers. But the website’s launch has been nothing short of disastrous. Media outlets have struggled to find anyone who’s actually been successful. The Washington Post even illustrated that sought after person as a unicorn. USA Today called the launch “an inexcusable mess” and “a nightmare.”
White House officials initially blamed the problem on unexpectedly high volume with more than 8 million hits in the first week. But after the website went offline over the weekend for repairs, officials now are acknowledging other problems.
KATHLEEN SEBELIUS, SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES: We’ve identified the glitches. We’ve added hardware. We’re recoding software, and I can tell you today is better than yesterday, and we’re hoping in the very near future to have a seamless process. That’s what we’re aiming for.
CRAWFORD: But computer experts say the website has major flaws.
LUKE CHUNG, OWNER OF DATABASE PROGRAMMING COMPANY: It wasn’t designed well. It wasn’t implemented well. And it looks like nobody tested it.
CRAWFORD: Luke Chung’s company builds online database programs. He supports the new healthcare law and says it’s not demand that’s crashing Healthcare.gov. The entire website needs a complete overhaul.
CHUNG: It’s not even close. It’s not even ready for beta testing from my book. I would be ashamed and embarrassed if my organization delivered something like that.
CRAWFORD: Now there are new reports that people who are actually able to register but then were blocked from going through the enrollment process now are being asked to reset their passwords and their usernames. We talked to Luke Chung about that last night and he said that is a sign this whole system is going through major changes to its software foundation. He said, you know, this is not looking like a Band-Aid solution. That’s more like a heart transplant. And that he said is a good thing.
Wow!
Nice to see some honest reporting about this disaster.
If only CBS News would have been as hard-hitting about this program before it was voted on in 2010.
Maybe the nation could have avoided the disaster.
