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 Obama's appeal for help in spreading the word came as the White
House was actively considering more ways to let people sign up,
including direct enrollment through insurance companies. Earlier
Monday, White House spokesman Jay Carney said 1 in 5 Americans won't
ever be able to complete their enrollment through the website due to
technical glitches, discomfort with using computers or complex
personal tax situations.
"It turns out that purchasing insurance for a lot of folks is
complicated," Obama said. "We've made sure that we've got a strong
plan to not just fix the website, which I'm taking responsibility
for, but also to make sure there are other ways that people can sign
up."
A self-imposed deadline to have the website running smoothly for the
"vast majority" of Americans is looming Nov. 30. Concerned that
problems that persist past the deadline will embolden critics to
argue Obama's health care law is an unfixable failure, the
administration began Monday to try to pre-empt that argument.
"We always understood that we were going to have to enroll people"
by mail, in person or on the phone, Obama said.
Still, the heightened focus on more traditional, time-intensive
methods for enrolling served as yet another reminder that the
high-tech, streamlined insurance market Obama described as he
pitched the law to the nation has not materialized for millions of
Americans.
Obama said he was still confident the website will work for most
people by the end of the month, and eventually will be the easiest
place to shop for insurance. But he added that the website's
failures have fueled misinformation about the broader health care
law.
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Speaking in subdued tones, Obama displayed little of the vigor he
deployed during his re-election campaign last year as he joined an
online conference call arranged by Organizing for Action, a private
group formed from the remnants of his 2012 campaign to support his
second-term agenda.
Organizers said more than 200,000 people joined Monday's call.
In a bit of irony for a president who's spent recent weeks dealing
with technical difficulties, some seeking to join the call were
initially prevented from doing so by technical issues with the
Web-based platform for the conference call.
[Associated
Press JOSH LEDERMAN]
Reach Josh Lederman at
http://twitter.com/joshledermanAP.
Copyright 2013 The Associated
Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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