President Barack Obama spoke in the Rose Garden of the White House about the Affordable Care Act on Monday; while the president admitted that there have been problems with the website and that the need to be addressed immediately he mostly spoke about the positive effects of the Affordable Care Act's implementation, according to CBS News.
Since healthcare.gov went live on Oct. 1 it has been hampered by technical glitches that have prevented customers from being able to purchase the health insurance that will be mandated by the first of the year.
"Nobody's madder than me about the fact that the website isn't working as well as it should, which means it's going to get fixed," President Obama said. "We've got people working overtime, 24/7, to boost capacity and address the problems."
President Obama said that the Affordable Care Act is "not just a website" and that despite the numerous issues the website has incurred, and the widespread media coverage of those issues, other aspects of the law have been successful, according to NBC News.
"The essence of the law - the health insurance that is available to people - is working just fine," President Obama said. "The prices are good. It is a good deal. People don't just want it, they're showing up to buy it."
Despite the optimism from the president others believe that the website needs to be fixed soon or there will be some serious problems. The website issues have not only been damaging in terms of public opinion toward the new health care reform law but they have also hurt the creation of "broad insurance pools." If a large amount of people aren't enrolling in the program giving insurance companies a broad mix of healthy and unhealthy customers premium rates could skyrocket in future years, according to NBC News.
"If we're not seeing a substantial improvement in the next two or three weeks, we'll be in a bad place," Dan Schuyler, an exchange expert at Leavitt Partners consulting firm, told NBC News. "We're already behind the curve in getting to that 7 million mark."
President Obama mentioned in his address that more call centers would be opened on Monday allowing people to sign up for insurance by phone; while some recognize this as a short-term fix it won't replace the necessity of the website, according to NBC News.
"They would take significantly longer than if it were automated," Schuyler said. "While it's a fallback, it's not going to resolve the issue that if healthcare.gov doesn't improve in two or three weeks, we're going to have this backlog of people who are trying to enroll."
A full transcrip of the president's speech can be read at the Washington Post by clicking this link.
