Senators Joe Manchin (D-WV) and John Barrasso (R-WY) debated on This Week With George Stephanopoulos whether Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius should resign following the disastrous rollout of the Affordable Care Act’s federal exchange website.
“I think she should stay, and I think she will get the job done,” Manchin said. “We’ve gotta move forward. If you want to kill the program, and you start making all these changes, that would kill the program. All we’re asking for is don’t have the fine go into place, get market-driven products, make sure you can entice, through incentives, young people that are healthy. We are a consumer nation, we are great entrepreneurs. We can make this happen, but we have to be on the same team, and that is Team America.”
Barrasso agreed with Manchin that a congressionally-authorized delay would be a good idea, but added that the website problems were only “the tip of the iceberg” of Obamacare’s problems.
“You talk about Secretary Sebelius,” Barrasso said. “She’s already, as of Saturday Night Live last night, the laughing stock of America. So she’s lost considerable credibility.”
“You have to work through this,” Manchin stressed. “The transition period of one year, is very reasonable and doable, and the fines don’t go into effect until 2015. We’re still working through it. If you delay it, you’re never going to identify the problems and work them out…We can’t go back to the old system.”
Watch the full clip below, via ABC News:
[Image via screengrab]
