WASHINGTON — Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius took a parting shot at the Obama administration Sunday, saying the president’s timeline to ready ObamaCare sign-up Web sites “was just flat-out wrong.”
“It was awful. It was awful. But all you could do is say, ‘We’re going to fix it,’ ” moaned Sebelius, as she recalled the disastrous launch of the glitch-riddled Web site.
She called it “a pretty dismal time” and said that she wished she had a “magic wand” to go back in time and help the administration better prepare for the launch.
“The estimate that it was ready to go October 1st was just flat-out wrong,” she said in an interview aired Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Sebelius, who has been pummeled with constant calls for her resignation since ObamaCare went off the rails, announced last week that she was leaving.
Her departure follows the end of the first open-enrollment period for the new health-care program and the administration crowing that 7.5 million Americans had signed up.
ObamaCare nevertheless remains unpopular with a majority of voters and a huge liability for Democratic candidates in this year’s elections.
Sebelius insisted Obama didn’t give her the boot, saying that she decided that “the end of open enrollment was a logical time to leave.”
But she admitted that Obama didn’t try to convince her to stay.