Having spent the last several years rooting for failure, House Republicans, and more specifically Oversight Chairman Darrell “Witch Hunt” Issa, would now like to know why the roll-out of the federal health insurance exchange hasn’t proceeded exactly as planned.
House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) told Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer on Sunday morning that he intends to subpoena records relating to the building of the Affordable Care Act federal exchange website, and that President Barack Obama needs to substantively restructure the management of Obamacare.
If you need a good example of Republicans being disingenuous about the sacred Private Sector, you need only observe their reaction to the debut of Healthcare dot gov.
Healthcare.gov saw tens of millions of visitors in its first few weeks of operation, and while it did experience problems that led to people waiting in line for hours just to create an account, it wasn’t completely inaccessible. And need I remind you that the website was built by a private contractor?
Furthermore, even the likes of Facebook and Twitter did not see as much traffic in their first years of operation as Healthcare dot gov did in its first few weeks. And Twitter, which is more or less stable now, was once the home of the infamous fail-whale that appeared on a weekly, if not nightly, basis.
Twitter went through a process of upgrading their services to handle extra load — a “tech surge” if you want to use the president’s terminology — and after the dust settled the service was more stable.
This isn’t so much an excuse for the performance of the federal exchange website as it is a recognition of reality and a perspective that does not compel you to set your hair on fire. Healthcare.gov has already been drastically improved as many in the media and in government begin drafting their plans to campaign on its failure.
Not surprisingly, House Witch Hunter Darrel Issa believes Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius should resign, but I don’t believe he will be granted his wish any more than he was when he demanded that Attorney General Eric Holder resign.