Health Care

Sebelius a White House regular ahead of ObamaCare launch

WASHINGTON – Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius frequently contacted President Obama in the run-up to the botched launch of ObamaCare last year, raising new questions about when he learned of the problems.

Sebelius, who insists the president was unaware of severe glitches in the HealthCare.gov Web site, met with or attended calls and events with Obama at least 18 times in the year before the October launch, according to a report in the Hill based on scheduling documents it obtained.

The schedules showed that on at least seven of those occasions Obama and Sebelius were penciled in to discuss the new healthcare law.

She also visited the White House scores of time to see Obama’s closest aides, including at least three breakfast or lunch meetings with top adviser Pete Rouse.

On other occasions during the roughly year-long period, she met with senior adviser Valerie Jarrett, White House chief of staff Denis McDonough and top health care adviser Chris Jennings.

Obama declared that he was as surprised as anyone after the glitch-plagued Web site repeatedly malfunctioned and crashed following the Oct. 1 launch.

“On the website, I was not informed directly that the website would not be working the way it was supposed to,” Obama said at a Nov. 14 press conference.

“Had I been informed,” he said, “I wouldn’t be going out saying, boy, this is going to be great.”

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said that there was nothing unusual about Sebelius visiting the White House.

“She is frequently at the White House for meetings on a wide range of topics, including the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. As we have also said, the Affordable Care Act is more than just a website, and consistent with other significant policy initiatives, there was coordination across the Administration on a broad range of policy and implementation topics,” HHS said in a statement.

Obama has resisted calls for Sebelius’ resignation over the disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov and the ObamaCare law.

When pressed on it by Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly during a pre-Super Bowl interview this month, Obama said that he didn’t want to change secretaries “midstream.”

“I promise you that we hold everybody up and down the line accountable,” the president said. “But when we are midstream, Bill, we want to make sure our main focus is how do we make this thing work so people are able to sign up, and that is what we have done.”