Sen. Mark Begich issues a stern warning to the White House about HealthCare.gov. Senate Dems vent at Obama on ACA

President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and other senior administration officials met privately at the White House on Wednesday with frustrated Senate Democrats facing reelection in 2014 to discuss the botched Obamacare rollout.

The two-hour meeting comes as the Obama administration and congressional Democrats work to assess the political fallout from the health care overhaul’s troubled implementation. Lawmakers passed on the frustration expressed by their constituents and the White House walked through their steps to repair the program.


“The American people are frustrated with the White House’s botched rollout of the Affordable Care Act, and I am too,” said Arkansas Sen. Mark Pryor, one of the chamber’s most vulnerable Democrats. “In today’s meeting, I told the President and Vice President three things: 1) fix the website immediately 2) address the problems with the law and 3) hold the individuals in charge accountable for these mistakes. I won’t let up until these problems are fixed.”

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“It was a real policy-heavy meeting,” a Democratic aide said. “The White House chose this group because this is a group that’s going to be ultra-sensitive to their constituents’ frustrations. This needs to be fixed. We all want this to work.”

The members at the meeting were Pryor, Mark Begich of Alaska, Cory Booker of New Jersey, Chris Coons of Delaware, Dick Durbin of Illinois, Al Franken of Minnesota, Kay Hagan of North Carolina, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Jack Reed of Rhode Island, Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Brian Schatz of Hawaii, Mark Udall of Colorado, Tom Udall of New Mexico, Mark Warner of Virginia and Michael Bennet of Colorado, according to Senate aides and the White House.

Mark Udall said in a statement after the meeting that he wants consumers to have time to shop for a plan and enroll after the problems are repaired.

“I urged the president again to extend the enrollment period to give consumers enough time to make an informed decision about their family’s health insurance options,” Udall said. “I also told the president that, for the Affordable Care Act to succeed, consumers need to be confident their personal information is secure. We need to do everything in our power to protect the online marketplace from hackers and cyberattacks.”

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Obama used the meeting to discuss the administration’s push to fix HealthCare.gov and to help those interested in enrolling in individual plans, a White House official said. He also shared details of the administration’s plan to “ramp up communication and education outreach to consumers who have received or might receive letters about how their individual market plans might be affected,” the official added.

The president also told the lawmakers that administration is working to put better privacy safeguards into pace, and asked them for feedback on the law’s impact on their constituents.

All senators except for Bennet are up for re-election in 2014; Bennet is the chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. After the meeting, he joined Obama on Marine One for a trip to Dallas, where the president will attend two DSCC fundraisers Wednesday night.

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Begich, one of the most vulnerable Senate Democrats in next year’s midterm elections, noted in a statement that Obamacare’s rollout problems are hurting those who need health insurance the most.

“It’s absolutely unacceptable in this day and age that the administration can’t deliver on the promises it made to all Americans because of technical problems with a website,” Begich said. “Alaskans should be appreciating the critical benefits of the Affordable Care Act but there is an understandable crisis in confidence because the administration has yet to get it off the ground.”