October 20, 2013

There are a lot of things that can be said about the rollout of the new healthcare.gov web site and the problems we've seen, but this has to be one of the more ridiculous criticisms that I've heard in a long while. Who knew that Sen. Marco Rubio was a web developer?

Mr. Rubio expressed disappointment in his fellow Republicans for not “uniting” in the fight to defund Obamacare.

He criticized the Affordable Care Act’s rocky start, blaming the Obama administration for hiding the fact that not many Americans are signing up for the health care exchanges because of glitches on the website.

“Setting up a website where people can go online and buy something is not that complicated,” he said. “People do this every day.”

As Jamie explained in his post on some of the problems we're seeing, I don't think it's "everyday" someone is building a web site that has to work behind the scenes with DHS, Social Security, the IRS and other government agencies. With all of the verification required, the site is much more than just a place where "people can go online and buy something," as Rubio described it here. It doesn't excuse the problems, but comparing it to some retail store's web site is just patently ridiculous.

Of course Republicans aren't interested in actually trying to fix any of the problems. They just want to use it as a political cudgel to beat Democrats over the head with.

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