President Obama says Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is in no danger of losing her job.
Just as 10 Republican senators called on Obama on Thursday to fire Sebelius for the troubled rollout of the HealthCare.gov website, Obama offered his latest defense of Sebelius.
"I think Kathleen Sebelius, under tremendously difficult circumstances over the last 4½ years, has done a great job in setting up the insurance markets so that there is a good product out there for people to get," Obama said. "You know, Kathleen Sebelius doesn't write code."
The president's comments came in an NBC News interview in which he most notably apologized that some Americans are losing their current health insurance plans as a result of the Affordable Care Act, despite his oft-repeated assurances that they could keep their insurance plans if they like them.
Obama added about Sebelius: "She wasn't our IT person. I think she'd be the first to admit that if we had to do it all over again, that there would have been a whole lot more questions that were asked, in terms of how this thing is working. But my priority right now is to get it fixed."
Asked by NBC News if Sebelius is still the right person for the job, Obama responded: "Ultimately, the buck stops with me. You know, I'm the president. This is my team. If it's not working, it's my job to get it fixed."
0 comments:
Post a Comment