My must read of the day is "Obama Asks OFA For Help With Troubled Health Care Rollout," in Reuters:
President Barack Obama, defiant against critics of his troubled health care plan, vowed on Monday to press ahead with the rollout and asked supporters to help as the White House struggled to gain control of the debate over his signature achievement in the face of mounting criticism.
Obama went before 200 of the core activists who helped turn out the vote for him in his re-election a year ago, seeking their assistance to enroll people into the Affordable Care Act amid signs that early enrollment numbers will fall far short of expectations.
"I need your help to implement this law," he told leaders of the Organizing For Action group that grew out of his 2012 campaign. "I need your help to educate folks about this law." […]
Obama promised that the problems with the website will be fixed and vowed the health care law would not be stopped.
"When the unanticipated happens, we're just going to work on it, we're going to fix things that aren't working the way they should be and we're just going to keep on going," he said.
Rather than gain control of the flailing program and fix the problems, the Obama team is more focused on gaining control of the debate.
The low enrollment numbers are not a result of poor communication. From the navigators to the incessant news coverage, everyone knows that they can enroll in the exchanges (if the website is working!).
The problem is the law.
A newly published analysis by the Manhattan Institute found that on average "state[s] will face underlying premium increases of 41 percent," with young healthy males seeing the most dramatic increases. The website is an utter mess. And over 2 million people are being dropped from their insurance plans. None of this is what people were promised.
Furthermore, it’s false to say the website woes were "unanticipated." The administration was well aware of the problems.
These are deep-rooted problems. And activists from Organizing For Action can’t fix them with rhetoric.