WASHINGTON — Angry House Democrats threatened mutiny against President Obama over the broken health-care law in a tense, closed-door meeting with White House officials Wednesday.
“It got heated. Don’t come here telling us [the Web site] would be fixed by November 30 because the whole world believes it won’t be fixed,” fumed Rep. José Serrano (D-Bronx).
“They heard our caucus,” said Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-NJ). “In this business, you keep your word or get out.”
The fledgling revolt quickly spread to the other side of the Capitol, where Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) fumed: “The [ObamaCare] store’s open and the door’s locked.”
“I’m frustrated and angry along with everyone else,” she declared.
Democrats who fear tough election fights next year because of their early support of ObamaCare are increasingly distancing themselves from the president.
A key test of their loyalty could come Friday, when House Democrats will have to vote on a Republican bill allowing Americans to keep their current health plans through 2014.
The administration claims the bill would also gut the new law.
But two Democrats — John Barrow of Georgia and Mike McIntyre of North Carolina — have already signed on and even House Minority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland said he wouldn’t “close the door” to supporting the measure.
Democratic lawmakers are calling on Obama to hurry up and offer his own solution so they don’t have to choose between saving their own political skins or supporting Obama.
The lawmakers are also talking about offering their own version of the GOP bill.
The White House has been scrambling to come up with a remedy for the canceled policies, as experts warn that repair to a single strand of ObamaCare could have unintended consequences on other parts.
The unrest in the Democratic ranks emerged as the administration announced that just 26,794 people signed up for ObamaCare in the first month since the glitch-riddled federal Web site covering 36 states opened for business.
In an attempt to calm his members, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) scheduled a meeting for his Democratic caucus Thursday with officials from the administration.
But it was too late to head off some defectors.
Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) has already offered a bill that would let people keep health plans that existed as of Dec. 31 for as long as they want. Two key Democrats — Sens. Dianne Feinstein of California and Jeff Merkley of Oregon — have joined as co-sponsors.
In yet another break with Obama, Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) introduced another bill to let people keep existing health plans for up to two years.
Whether Congress passes legislation or the White House devises its own fix, health insurance experts say policy cancellations can’t be reversed without upending the new law.
“There’s no free lunch. The healthier have to pay more to make the law work,” said MIT economics professor Jon Gruber, who advised the White House on ObamaCare.
“If you keep the promise for younger and healthier people to keep their current plans, you break the promise to provide affordable coverage to many more millions of people.”
As many as 5 million Americans are set to lose their health coverage because of ObamaCare, despite the president’s promises to the contrary.
At the same time, the glitch-riddled ObamaCare site is frustrating Americans trying to sign up for the new mandatory health coverage.
The disappointing enrollment figures showed that just 817 people per day were able to sign up on the federal site between Oct. 1 and Nov. 2.
Washington, DC and the 14 states that run their own sites enrolled 79,391 people the first month, or nearly 75 percent of the total 106,185.
The slow pace cast further doubts over the administration’s ability to meet its goal of enrolling 7 million people by March 31.
But the Web site currently can handle less than 25,000 simultaneous users before it crashes — less than half the target set by the administration, White House Chief Technology Officer Todd Park told a House panel.
Additional reporting by Carl Campanile