As his administration scrambles to fix the online enrollment process under the Affordable Care Act, President Obama is facing a challenge that threatens to undercut the most significant legislative victory of his presidency.
The online web site was billed ahead of the rollout as an easy-to-use portal where the uninsured could window shop for their health care options. Instead it was plagued with problems.
"The longer this gets delayed, the less believable the excuses of the Obama administration become to people," said Susan MacManus, a political scientist at the University of South Florida. "It feeds into the concerns that people have about inefficiencies and waste by government at a time when many people are still struggling to get by."
Now an effort that the White House is billing as a "tech surge" to fix the web site is crucial to the White House's ability to reach its goal of signing up 7 million people for coverage through government exchanges by the end of March.
So far, the White House has shed little light on how much progress has been made toward reaching that goal.
More than 19 million people have logged on to the federal website, which is being run for 36 states that declined to set up their own exchanges. And nearly 500,000 have filled out applications for insurance through both the federal and state-run sites, but the White House won't say how many have enrolled.
Even if the administration is now able to fix the problems with the web site could further diminish public opinion for a law that still faces skepticism. Forty-three percent approve of the law, while 51% disapprove, according to a CBS News poll published Tuesday.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/10/22/obama-health-care-problems-analysis/3151757/
