Kathleen Sebelius apologized today for the failings of the Obamacare website.
The government health care website went live earlier this month but it has been plagued with problems. Millions of people have reportedly tried to sign up for health care but only a few have succeeded.
The Health and Human Services Secretary said: “You deserve better. I apologize. I’m accountable to you for fixing these problems and I’m committed to earning your confidence back by fixing the site.”
Sebelius, who was testifying at a congressional hearing about the botched website, attempted to assure the public that the website was the only thing wrong with the landmark healthcare law. She did, however, admit that the debacle had hurt the administrations credibility.
The Health and Human Services Secretary said: “I know there’s no confidence in that date until we deliver on that.”
Sebelius was asked about how many people had signed up for the website but she could not provide an answer. Sebelius said that the website does not have reliable data at the moment and wouldn’t be able to provide an answer until mid-November.
She added : “They [insurers] are not getting reliable data all the way through the systems… The system isn’t functioning so we are not getting that reliable data. Insurers who I met with said that is the case.”
The White House has hired a contractor to fix the failing website and said that Healthcare.gov would be free of bugs by the end of November. Sebelius said that the website failed after its launch because the government did not do adequate testings.
Sebelius said: “We did not adequately do end-to-end testing.”