Chicago Mayor and former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel said Wednesday that he had been assured “that heads are rolling” over the technical problems plaguing the ObamaCare website.
“I have all the confidence and I — and all the assurance that heads are rolling and they’re spinning right now to fix the problem,” Emanuel told CNN.
{mosads}Emanuel said that the president’s focus was fixing the technical issues underlying the ObamaCare website. Users have been unable to open accounts and purchase insurance on the portal, which was billed by the administration as the easiest way for uninsured consumers to find coverage.
Insurance companies report that even when consumers successfully purchase a plan, bad data is then transmitted from the government.
“We’ll deal with culpability later because the most important thing you’ve got to do is get the problem fixed,” Emanuel said.
During a speech Wednesday in Boston, Obama said there was “no excuse” for the technical glitches and that he took “full responsibility for making sure it gets fixed.”
“The website is too slow. Too many people have gotten stuck, and I am not happy about it,” Obama said. “Neither are a lot of Americans who need healthcare.”
But the administration has so far publicly resisted calls to fire officials over the botched rollout.
In an interview with CNN last week, White House press secretary Jay Carney said that “it shouldn’t be about having heads roll or firing people.”
“The accountability [President Obama is] looking for is the accountability of making sure that everybody who has expertise in this matter is focused on fixing it, not focused on, you know, making heads roll,” he continued. “That’s not the time right now to focus on that. The time is to get these problems fixed, make sure the system is working most efficiently for the American people. That is what his focus is on right now.”