Marilyn Tavenner, who leads the agency in charge of the Obamacare website, apologized during a second congressional hearing on Tuesday, saying the website has been inadequate and unacceptable, Reuters reported.
Since the website went live four week ago, President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act has been inundated with website error messages, delays and bugs preventing users from getting signing up or even getting a healthcare quote. The administration brought in more technology experts from within the governement and a few private contractors, according to Reuters.
During a congressional hearing to discuss the difficulties with the website, Healthcare.gov, key official, Tavenner, said the Obama administration has been working on glitches with the website since bringing in experts to diagnose the problems last week, adding there is still more work ahead, Reuters reported.
Tavenner, who leads the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, gave a prepared testimony to the House Ways and Means Committee and said when fixed and working to the best of its ability, the Affordable Care Act will provide more to Americans than just a website.
"The initial consumer experience of Healthcare.gov has not lived up to the expectations of the American people and is not acceptable," Tavenner said, according to Reuters. "We are committed to fixing these problems as soon as possible."
According to Reuters, Republicans have used the glitches to question administration officials on not only the functionality of the website, but of Obamacare, as well. The GOP is expected to press Tavenner on testimony she gave in August, when she said work was on track to roll out a tested website that would make it easy for Americans to enroll for insurance.
Tavenner said in her testimony on Tuesday that an "initial wave of interest stressed the account service, resulting in many consumers experiencing difficulty signing up, while those who were able to sign up sometimes had problems logging in," adding that many of the contractors working on the website at the time did not meet expectations, but declined to name the contractors.
A data center outage on Sunday prevented Americans from accessing the site and enrolling in the health insurance, but was back up on Monday, according to Reuters.
According to Tavenner, after new contractors were brought in and have been working on the website parts are still experiencing problems, the site's capacity has grown and more people are creating accounts, Reuters reported.
"We are pleased with these quick improvements, but we know there is still significant, additional work to be done," Tavenner said.
"While a website can be fixed, the widespread problems of Obamacare cannot," Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp said.
According to a CBS News report, over 2 million people have received health care cancellation letters from their existing health care providers if those providers are not meeting health care law's 10 minimum standards, including maternity care, emergency visits, mental health treatment and even pediatric dental care.
In response, Tavenner said the government stands ready to help people who've lost their current coverage to sign up for a new Obamacare plan, CBS News reported.
"They can call the call center today, and we can help them," she said. "We also have people in their individual markets who can help them in person. There are more methods than just the website."
