The administration must convince the public that the law is more than a series of hiccups. | REUTERS Obamacare: What defines success?

Democrats have a general idea of what it would take to put the Obamacare rollout back on track. Fix the damn website, they say, and most of the other problems will take care of themselves.

But will they? The problem is that neither the administration or the House and Senate yoked to it can describe a threshold for when the public will view the health law as on the way to recovery.


What does the moment of success look like? Democrats aren’t quite sure - which makes party faithful up for re-election in 2014 increasingly nervous and makes the White House’s ability to set realistic expectations exceedingly difficult.

( Understanding Obamacare: POLITICO’s guide to the ACA)

After a month of devastating stories and late-night jokes about the launch of the health care law, the administration needs to convince the public that Obamacare is more than a series of canceled policies and computer hiccups. It’s just not clear how the Obama team can convincingly do that, especially now that the early enrollment in the federal website could be as low as 40,000 to 50,000 people, according to the Wall Street Journal — way below the administration’s goal.

And it’s not just President Barack Obama’s reputation that’s on the line — it’s every Democrat who’s up for re-election in a year, especially the red-state Senate Democrats who are facing the closest races.

Democrats are still hoping to get back to the law’s broader vision: a health care safety net that closes huge gaps and helps all Americans, especially those who have been shut out of the market because of pre-existing conditions.

( PHOTOS: 10 Sebelius quotes about Obamacare website)

But how can they recover when the stumble-filled website, and now the canceled health insurance policies around the country, have already given the Obamacare rollout such a lousy first impression? And when every new development - such as the low enrollment numbers, which the administration is supposed to release officially this week - is viewed within the prism of the president’s signature domestic achievement turning into a national joke?

Most Democrats insist that the main path to recovery is as easy as fixing the website. That’s the line even from the Senate Democrats who bent Obama’s ear at the White House last week about the rollout. They just can’t give any concrete suggestions on what else it would take — which is why most of them sound like the old Saturday Night Live “fix it” guy: “Identify a problem, FIX IT. Identify another problem, FIX IT!”

“Getting the website working again would be a major step in the right direction,” said Mark Pryor of Arkansas, whose re-election race is expected to be one of the closest contests next year.

“These technical problems can be fixed, and they’re working very hard every day to fix them,” offered Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, another top GOP target.

( PHOTOS: Senate’s Obamacare hearing)

Health care experts agree that patching up the federal website by the end of the month, as the administration has promised, is the key to solving a lot of problems — especially by allowing Obamacare enrollment to soar beyond the early, pitiful numbers that are trickling out now. But even if the website was working tomorrow, it wouldn’t solve all of the Democrats’ headaches.

The other big priority, as Obama promised in his NBC interview last week, is to take care of the millions of people whose individual health insurance policies are being canceled because they don’t meet Obamacare standards. And there’s no easy way for the administration to do that without unraveling the law in other ways.

Obama declared in the NBC interview that “we’re going to have to work hard— to make sure that those folks— are, you know, taken care of.” Landrieu has said she has the perfect solution: She’s introduced a bill that would allow people to keep their individual health plans, and just tell them how many extra benefits are in Obamacare plans so they can decide whether to switch. House Republicans have scheduled a vote on their own version on Friday.

( PHOTOS: House hearing on Obamacare website)

But that’s not what all Democrats want — the White House has been silent on it, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has been noncommittal on whether Landrieu will ever get a vote. The reason, health care experts say, is that the bill could actually hurt more people than it helps. Insurers have based their pricing on the ability to get all of those people into Obamacare plans — so if they don’t switch, the prices could go haywire for everyone else in those plans.

Just try explaining that in a non-tone-deaf way, though, if you’re on the White House communications team — or a Democrat in a close re-election race.

“If you allow the healthy enrollees to stay out in their old policy, the insurers lose money and the program falls apart. There is no free lunch here,” said Jonathan Gruber, an MIT health economist who consulted on both Obamacare and the Massachusetts health care reform law.

Somehow, though, a complete Obamacare recovery would have to include some measure to make those people whole — even if the administration is still searching for a way to get there.

“I think they need to find some way not to be so inflexible,” said Elaine Buccieri, a self-employed attorney in Arlington, Tex. She has always supported Obamacare, and says she still does — but can’t find an Obamacare plan that meets her needs without being significantly more expensive.

Buccieri is one of the lucky ones — she’ll get to keep her individual health plan into next year because Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas has moved everyone’s “anniversary dates” to December 2014. But after that, she’ll probably have to switch to an Obamacare plan.

And unlike other people in the same situation, Buccieri doesn’t have a bare-bones plan. She says it would be equivalent to a “silver” plan — the second-least-expensive kind of Obamacare coverage — and she can’t find one for a comparable price that would meet her prescription drug needs, which is her top priority.

To Buccieri, a recovery would mean giving people with individual plans more time to transition to Obamacare until insurers can offer better prices. “To have that pre-existing condition coverage is fantastic. I just think they need to get their pricing under control,” she said.

Even if Democrats did focus all their energy on the website, that assumes there will be a time when Obama can safely declare it fixed and not have to worry about being burned later. Administration officials have been deliberately vague about what would count as “fixed.” They generally stay close to the careful language Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius used this week, when she told the Finance Committee that the site should be “working smoothly for the vast majority of users” by the end of the month.

Joel Ario, the former head of the office in charge of Obamacare’s health insurance exchanges, said the administration will be able to declare the site back on track “if it works reasonably well for the vast majority of people — say, 85 or 90 percent.”

If that happens, Democratic strategists say, there’s still hope for a turnaround and the Democrats up for re-election will be fine — as long as the Obama administration does a better job carrying out the rest of the law.

“If the rest of the implementation is as dysfunctional as what we have seen, there certainly will be consequences,” said one Democratic campaign strategist. “But if the rest of the law is implemented the way it’s supposed to be, there won’t be political consequences.”

Political risks aside, the reality is that a functioning website is the key to achieving many other milestones of an Obamacare turnaround — like getting big enrollment numbers.

The administration is bracing for another tough political hit this week, when it releases the official early enrollment numbers. The White House has already been warning that the first month’s figures will be extremely low, but if the leaked numbers are correct, the federal website appears to have enrolled roughly as many people as the 14 states that are running their own health insurance exchanges.

But if the website is patched up enough to be useable, Obamacare could score bigger numbers later on, before the open enrollment season ends in March — especially with young adults, who are likely to sign up at the last minute.

Some health care experts say there’s no substitute for being patient — and waiting for more people to get coverage.

“The winners have to greatly outnumber the losers,” said Drew Altman of the Kaiser Family Foundation. “They win the fight if the vast majority of people like the coverage they’re getting.”

Democratic strategists say they’re still counting on the long game. Sure, Senate Democrats will go to the White House and hold Obama accountable on the sloppy implementation, they say, but that’s because it’s their job to do so. As long as Republicans keep talking about blocking the law, they says, Democrats can remind the public of the hugely unpopular shutdown and still have the upper hand in the 2014 elections.

And as the majority of Americans realize the law doesn’t even touch them, Democrats say, they’ll move on and the website problems will fade away.

“The main concern most people have is the uncertainty. It’s not the individual mandate. It’s not the exchanges. It’s not any particular part of the law. It’s the uncertainty,” said the Democratic campaign strategist. “Time is on the Democrats’ side. It’s not on the Republicans’ side.”

Jim Manley, a Democratic strategist and former Reid spokesman, says the Democrats “just have to grind it out, be as transparent as possible, give the public and the media the information they want, and keep it up until it’s working.”

And one more thing, Manley said: Don’t start calling for people’s heads. That could happen if the problems continue, as Pryor hinted in his statement after the White House meeting, when he said he told Obama to “hold the individuals in charge accountable for these mistakes.”

“The one thing I’m worried about is that they are going to start looking for scapegoats. That’s just going to make the sharks circle even more,” Manley said.