By Stephanie Condon
For two months, while HealthCare.gov underwent major technical repairs, President Obama and Democrats floundered: The president was increasingly apologetic for the stalled components of the Affordable Care Act, while congressional Democrats proved readier than ever to work with Republicans to change the law...
...Lawmakers knew from the start that some Americans would be dropped from their plans in the private market (as a portion of consumers are every year), but they assumed that they'd be able to get new coverage via Obamacare -- the website problems complicated that.
Republican strategist and pollster Randy Gutermuth of the firm American Viewpoint doesn't see that problem going away -- if anything, more problems with the law will surface, he said."
The abysmal rollout of the website is just a precursor to what's going to happen," he said, arguing "there's a reason all this implementation was delayed until [Mr. Obama] was reelected in the first place."
Mr. Obama tried to appease those losing coverage by allowing insurers to extend existing policies for another year, but Gutermuth said such temporary "patchwork fixes" will only force Democrats to confront these problems closer to the 2014 election…
