Dean: Obama can ‘right this ship’

Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean (D) on Sunday said that President Obama would have a second shot to make a good impression with his healthcare reform legacy.

“I think the president can right this ship,” he told Candy Crowley on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

The Obama administration had promised a more functioning HealthCare.gov website by Dec. 1 in hopes of making up for the botched introduction only two months prior.

By early Sunday morning, the ObamaCare Web team largely touted victory in meeting its goal that the site would work for a vast majority of users, but noted that more work would need to be done.

{mosads}Overall, they said they had reduced the error rate to below 1 percent, increased the capacity of visitors able to use the site at the same time while also keeping response time to about one second.

Dean said that the success of the program would lie months ahead, once people are able to sign up and fully realize the benefits.

“This is all dependent on how well the system functions, not on all the propaganda or the screaming and shouting and yelling that is going on in Washington,” he added.

“It’s going to be ordinary people’s experience and their neighbor’s experience with this website.”

Former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), however, argued that the website fixes are only cosmetic.

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