Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) discussed his proposed bill to delay the individual mandate because of the Obamacare website's widely panned launch on CBS This Morning Tuesday, calling it unfair to penalize Americans for not signing up for something that isn't even available.
"What I'm arguing is this," he said. "The law says very clearly if at some point next year, you do not have health insurance, you haven't bought it, the IRS, you're going to owe them money, a penalty. You talked about it in the package that introduced this segment. The reality is it's unfair to punish people for not purchasing a product that they can't purchase right now because the technology that's in place, the website that they're supposed to buy it on, by the president's own admission, is not working."
Rubio maintained he was firmly opposed to the law and wanted it repealed, but he said the first step was a delay on that requirement until the website was certified to be up and working for six consecutive months. CBS reports Rubio said he's hopeful the measure will pass, especially as the deadline draws closer:
"As weeks go on, there's going to be a look for a solution to the problem. It's not fair to punish people for buying something that's not available," he said. "Quite frankly, I think that's where we're going to have to wind up anyway. You saw yesterday, the White House didn't rule out a delay. Jay Carney didn't rule it out because they understand that the problems that this web site faces are significant and are going to be very difficult to fix in a number of weeks."