For a healthcare initiative partly designed to reassure sceptical consumers they won't have to put up with British-style rationing, the appearance of a virtual “waiting room” on a creaky government website that even the president hates is unfortunate, to say the least.

But the technical snags that overshadowed the launch of Obama's insurance exchanges this month are far from just public relations setbacks. If a new “surge” of techies cannot fix them quickly, his wider goal of spreading affordable health insurance to the 15% of Americans without risks being set back years.

The problem is that the website glitches, though minor in themselves, undermine the system of carrots and sticks at the heart of the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare.

On the one hand, the frustrations of logging on and registering personal details send an unconvincing signal to the 15 million uninsured that Obama hopes to tempt into the insurance market for the first time.

Aggregating the purchasing power of the medically-dispossessed is a key feature of the market-based Affordable Care Act. Together with measures to prevent insurers discriminating against those with pre-existing medical conditions, an influx of healthy new customers was meant to keep costs lower for everyone. So far, it appears the numbers registering are too low for the administration to dare release them.

Only three weeks into a six-month open enrolment process, there is time to fix this. Yet at the same time, the “stick” aimed at forcing younger, healthier customers to sign up – known as the individual mandate – could also be undermined if shirkers try to avoid tax penalties by claiming they were prevented, or even just put off, by the website glitches.

Lest anyone think this sounds like a lame excuse, White House press secretary Jay Carney was forced to concede on Monday that the mandate currently exempts anyone who can point to “other factors” preventing them from accessing the insurance in their state.

So far, the administration is reluctant to officially extend the 15 February deadline for complying with the individual mandate, but if the website problems continue for much longer, anyone fined for failing to sign up might have a plausible case in law, according to Carney.

Instead, the White House is pinning its hopes on a swift and successful fix of the bugs that plagued the first three weeks of the exchanges.

If this were easy, it would be fixed by now, and officials are at pains to point out the complexity of a dynamic, transactional site designed to function in 30 different states.

“The idea that setting up a website is simple is something that would be challenged in Silicon Valley,” said Carney.

And though few doubt the site will be running smoothly soon, the political fallout may just be only beginning.

Already, conservative opponents are using the debacle to question not just Obamacare, but the state's wider ability to intervene effectively in any sensitive personal arena.

“As we cringe at what’s going on in Washington today, particularly with Obamacare, it should remind us that every time Washington tries to control another part of our lives, it creates division, and diminishes the love that Americans have for our country,” said Jim DeMint, president of the right-wing Heritage Foundation on Monday.

“They think that if everyone is forced to do the same thing and believe the same things that there will be more equality and unity,” he said. “But when people have many different values and beliefs, if they are forced to endure, pay for, or participate in activities that violate their conscience, this creates disharmony and division, even hate.”

The political own goal scored by Republicans when they forced a government shutdown by attempting to repeal Obamacare is fast making way for a similar Democratic blunder that has senior party figures openly gnashing their teeth in frustration.

“What has happened is unacceptable,” said House minority leader Nancy Pelosi on Sunday. “This has to be fixed.”

Meanwhile, while Obama should have been revelling in his moment of triumph over Republicans, he is forced to counter comparisons with New Coke as the worst product launch in history.

“The product is good; the health insurance that’s being provided is good. It’s high quality and it’s affordable,” insisted the president on Monday.

“And I think it’s fair to say that nobody is more frustrated by that than I am – precisely because the product is good, I want the cash registers to work. I want the checkout lines to be smooth. So I want people to be able to get this great product. And there’s no excuse for the problems.”

If this was a corporate product launch of similar importance, one imagines the share price would be tanking.