Too bad congressional hearings don’t work like “The Apprentice.” Officially, Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius goes before a House committee Wednesday to speak to the “implementation failures” of the ObamaCare Web site that functions as though it were designed by a Tea Party saboteur. But the real question on everyone’s mind is the one that won’t be asked: Why this woman hasn’t yet heard Donald Trump’s trademark phrase: “You’re fired”?
Here’s what we do know. The rollout of ObamaCare and especially its Web site, HealthCare.gov, has been a fiasco of Inspector Clouseau proportions. The White House says the site’s going to wind up costing a billion dollars — with the fix costing roughly twice what was spent to build it in the first place.
And we have no reason to believe the White House will meet its end-of-November deadline, and good reason to doubt that, even if fixed, the site can handle the millions of Americans who are required by law to enroll in insurance by Dec. 15.
Based on earlier testimony from some of the contractors, we also have reason to suspect that the real issue isn’t Sebelius’ lack of knowledge about Web design. That is to say, one big reason HeathCare.gov has functioned so badly is that those who built it were required to hide the true costs of ObamaCare by showing Americans only what they would pay after their subsidies, which made it needlessly difficult to shop around.
If Sebelius isn’t to blame, it’s hard to imagine who is. She’s served as Health and Human Services secretary from the first days of the Obama administration. In other words, she was part of ObamaCare even before it passed. And she’s had 3½ years since then to prepare for the rollout of what the president regards as his signature achievement.
All during the runup to the big launch, Sebelius was as serene and reassuring as a nun. In a July TV interview, she said her department was “on track to flip the switch on Oct. 1 and say to people, ‘Come on and sign up.’ ”
Even a week into the rollout, when the problems were obvious, she went on “The Daily Show” and gave a skeptical Jon Stewart her “promise” that the glitches were nothing much to worry about, that any rough patches would soon be smoothed over.
We now know otherwise. At best, Sebelius was herself ignorant about the problems, in which case she ought to be sacked for incompetence. At worst, she knew all about the problems but kept them from the president, in which case she ought to be fired for dishonesty.
There is a third possibility: The president and his Cabinet secretary were in it together. That is, they both knew it wasn’t working and wouldn’t be working on time for the launch, but went ahead anyway because they feared the political backlash of delay.
If this is true, President Obama will not resign, but he ought to insist at the least that Sebelius fall on her sword to make clear to the American people that there’s a new plan and a new leader.
In any other line of business, an executive guilty of Sebelius-level bungling wouldn’t be tolerated.
In baseball, the Marlins booted their general manager after a 59-100 season. In business, where executives lose their jobs all the time, Warren Buffet just fired his second CEO at Benjamin Moore paints. Even in government, President George W. Bush gave Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld the heave-ho when his Iraq policy was failing and he wanted a new way forward.
In the Obama White House, alas, it doesn’t work that way. Perhaps the president has calculated he can’t afford to admit the failure that giving Sebelius a pink slip would represent. Especially when Democratic crowing over the Republican failure to defund ObamaCare has been replaced by a chorus of Democratic senators stepping forward to beg for delay.
On “Saturday Night Live” last weekend, Kate McKinnon delivered a devastating Sebelius sendup. But as silly and stiff and absurd as McKinnon made Sebelius look, there’s no guarantee that in Wednesday’s House hearings, Sebelius as Sebelius will be any improvement.
The last we heard from Jay Carney, he told us Secretary Sebelius has the president’s “full confidence” and won’t be going anywhere. That’s good news for those of us who hope to see ObamaCare discredited.
If Jon Stewart and SNL are any clue, it may be even better news for late-night comics.