CNN's Wolf Blitzer said President Obama failed to explain why the much-maligned Obamacare website was not ready to go perfectly on Oct. 1 during his Rose Garden address Monday.
The Lead anchor Jake Tapper agreed, and after summing up the gist of Obama's remarks at the campaign-style event promoting the Affordable Care Act, said the president was "in an untenable position" due to the law's mandate that individuals sign up but find themselves unable to do so:
WOLF BLITZER: So there he is, the President of the United States in the Rose Garden making a 25-minute or so, maybe 26-minute pitch, if you will, for the Affordable Care Act, acknowledging he is frustrated. He does not like the way the website has worked these first three weeks. Nobody, he says, is more frustrated than I am. No sugarcoating, he says, but it's going to get fixed. He guarantees it. Didn't say when exactly it will be completely fixed but he said people are working around the clock to make it work. We've got a full analysis coming up as the president goes back into the Oval Office right now. Jake Tapper, let me just get your quick thought. The president really didn't explain why the website wasn't ready to go perfectly on day one.
JAKE TAPPER: No, he did upgrade. The word glitches is now kinks, so there is an acknowledgement in that change of language that it is more serious than the administration has acknowledged but he also just emphasized the product. He said I'm frustrated because this is a great product. He talked about the individuals with pre-existing conditions who now have insurance through these exchanges. He was introduced by a woman who was the first woman to sign up for insurance from the state of Delaware. As you and I were discussing, Wolf, it took her seven hours on the phone and online. Eventually, she had to go through and clean out all the cookies from her cache and then she was able to sign up, but she did sign up from the small state of Delaware. You know, he's in an untenable position. He wants to have people sign up. He gave out the 800 number, but at the same time, there are serious problems and tens of millions of Americans who need to get on these exchanges, because there is a federal mandate that they sign up for insurance by next March, but are having trouble doing so.