Sebelius on marketplace rollout: ‘Hold me accountable for the debacle’

Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius apologized Wednesday for the botched roll-out of the HealthCare.gov website (Source: “Sebelius on health-care law rollout: ‘Hold me accountable for the debacle. I’m responsible,” Washington Post, Oct. 31, 2013)

At a congressional hearing, Sebelius apologized for the flaws in the federally facilitated marketplace website. Conceding that navigating the health portal has been “a miserably frustrating experience for way too many Americans,” Sebelius told lawmakers: “Hold me accountable for the debacle. I’m responsible.”

In hindsight, she said, “we should have anticipated, we should have planned better, we should have tested better.”

Sebelius also tried to allay concerns about notices sent to hundreds of thousands of consumers stating that their individual insurance policies would soon be terminated because they did not comply with new standards under the ACA.

She said the cancellation of some policies was a justifiable result of the law. These policies will be replaced, she said, with ones that provide better benefits and more consumer protections, at similar or lower prices.