Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius defended Obamacare's failed website again Tuesday, telling CNN's Sanjay Gupta, "We anticipated at the outset that everyone would never use the website."
Sebelius clearly misspoke here. What she most likely meant to say was that, "We anticipated at the outset that NOT everyone would never use the website."
That message would be consistent with new White House efforts to promote other means of enrolling in Obamacare, particularly over the phone.
"What I know, though," Sebelius later explained to Gupta, "is that lots of people, and people I talk to every day, are not tech-savvy, want a live human being to sit and answer questions, want to talk to someone over the phone, want to talk with their friends and neighbors about what heath care providers are in the network and go back and ask some questions."
Unfortunately for Obama, the website was always the kost important part of Obamacare. It is absolutely essential for getting young and healthy people to buy insurance.
If only elderly people buy insurance over the phone, and determined sick people through the glitchy website, then the pool of people covered will be far more expensive than insurance companies originally projected.
Insurers will then be forced to either withdraw from the Obamacare exchanged entirely, or jack up prices. But that will only drive more healthy people out of the market, making the cost of covering those remaining even higher.
You can watch the full interview below:
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