America’s late night comics have been tearing the President apart for the disastrous rollout of the ObamaCare exchanges.
On Jimmy Kimmel Live Monday, the host said, “I find it fascinating that our national healthcare website barely functions and yet every single porn site in the world works like a charm” (video follows with transcript and commentary):
JIMMY KIMMEL, HOST: President Obama's new national health care program has been beset by a number of problems with the website. There are a lot of reports of error messages and instances of the Healthcare.gov website freezing up. Looks like their IT guy may have been in the IT Party. But they claim the problems are being caused by an unexpectedly large number of people trying to log on at the same time. Which is, you see, this is what happens when we don't outsource to India. Things get screwed up. [Laughter]
They’re saying if you are in need of healthcare, you have two choices: you can wait for them to get the site fixed or you can enroll in medical school, graduate, and then just take care of yourself which would probably be faster. [Laughter and applause]
It is interesting, though, I find it fascinating that our national healthcare website barely functions and yet every single porn site in the world works like a charm. [Laughter and applause]
President Obama addressed these issues in a speech this morning. He said there’s no excuse. He said he's frustrated and then this happened.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: To lift from the American people the crushing burden of unaffordable healthcare. To free families from the pervasive fear, that one illness. [Turns to see woman about to faint.] I got you. You're okay. This happens when I talk too long.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KIMMEL: Well, there you go. Now that's ObamaCare. As long as you get sick in the presence of the president, you're covered. [Laughter and applause]
The president also reminded that there are other ways to sign up. You don't have to go online. You can enroll over the phone and that's actually very easy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OPERATOR: Hello and welcome to Healthcare.gov, the place where you can learn about signing up for affordable healthcare. Your application is very important to us. Right now there are 8 million people ahead of you in line. Your estimated wait time is forever.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KIMMEL: It would be ironic to die while waiting on hold for health insurance, right? And who wouldn't want to die ironically?
Add it all up, and Kimmel spent two and a half minutes mocking the ObamaCare launch. NBC Tonight Show host Jay Leno also spent a great deal of time on this issue during his opening monologue. The CBS Late Show aired a rerun.
The bottom line here is America's late night comics smell blood in the water. This rollout is an absolute disaster with a comedy potential like nothing we've seen in years.
As such, if the administration doesn't get this fixed soon, it can count on late night attacks every weekday evening until it does.
And that's not going to be good for the president's approval ratings.
