U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson today said the website fiasco tainting the new health care law “is inexcusable” and “somebody ought to get fired.” But before any action like that, he said, the administration first needs to do everything it can to fix the online rollout of the health insurance program.
The Florida Democrat, who is a supporter of the health care law, said the administration can determine later “whoever was responsible [ for the website ] and continued to misinform the president.”
The lawmaker’s comments came this afternoon during an interview with reporters in his Tampa regional office. They echoed ones he made late yesterday in an interview with one of the state’s veteran political journalists, Michael Putney.
“They should wait and get the thing up and running, and then determine and let somebody be held accountable,” Nelson told Putney, who hosts “This Week In South Florida with Michael Putney” on Miami’s ABC affiliate, WPLG-Channel 10.
“That’s the problem in government today,” Nelson said. “People are not held to account.”
Nelson declined to place blame on any one individual, agency or company for problems with the website. Via the website, consumers were supposed to be able to shop for private health insurance policies on exchanges that opened Oct. 1. But the website has been fraught with infrastructure problems.
