Americans, you deserve better. I apologize, im accountable to you to fixing the problems. Is he keeping his promise to them . Congresswoman, they can get health insurance. They must be offered new plans. Some people like to drive a ford not a ferrari and some like to drink out of a red solo cup. Hold me accountsable, im responsible. They never asked you to delay the launch date. They did not. Frankly, i think it is not valuable at this point to do a lot of pointing blame, fixing the blame. What i want to do is fix the problem. I told the president that we were ready to go, clearly i was wrong. We were wrong. We knew that in any big new complicated system, there would be problems. No one ever imagined the volume of issues and problems that weve had. And we must fix it. And on other side of the hill, the Senate Health committee announced the hearing for today with chief Marilyn Tavenner round two. Luke, tell us about secretary sebelius and the wizard of oz . Reporter well toure sorry, ari. You guys look so much alike and both red sox fans too, right . Because Kathleen Sebelius is former governor of kansas, some wanted to throw out the proverbial were not in kansas anymore wizard of oz reference. That was done by joe barton who said we were having this parallel universe like the wizard of oz because of problems with the health care rollout. You saw the reference to red solo cups by representative blackburn. Then midway into a rather aggressive grilling from house republicans, take a listen. The president is ultimately responsible for the rollout, ultimately no, sir. We are responsible for the rollout. But who do you answer to . I answer to the president. Right, so is the president not ultimately responsibility like a company ceo would be . Sir, hes the president of the united states. It is the president s ultimate responsibility, correct . You clearly whatever, yes, he is the president and is responsible for government program. Will you tell the American Public i will go into the exchanges next year like everyone else . Sir, the way the law is written its a yes or no. Lets say youre wrong on that. Yes or no, if youre wrong, will you . I dont want misinformation to American Public. I dont want to give misinformation i want you to research if youre wrong will you go into the exchanges . If im wrong if you can, will you . Thats a yes or no. Reporter those are the two being pushed out by the rnc Rapid Response team, circling in on the answer by sebelius where she says whatever, that is something which youre ever before a Congressional Committee you never want to say because it will go viral quite quickly. Its a very contentious issue on capitol hill right now because a lot of members are going to enroll staffs in the d. C. Exchange and they want to have the same standard for the administration and thats why she got hit hard with that. Overall from conversations ive had with republicans and democrats, the general consensus is at a sebelius kept her head above water and took fault for what happened and accepted blame. She said it was a debacle. She said it wasnt acceptable. Some points of interest, they will not release the enrollment numbers until somewhere in midnovember, saying they want to get the Data Information correct as well as moving forward. They believe the exchanges should be up and running by the deadlines theyve set. And lastly, the problems are relegated to a specific subset of contractors who are not properly equipped to do the job. Thats what we learned today and not properly equipped to get the websites up and running. A Little Information about what went wrong, a lot of apologies, this is what we did and this is why we should be blamed. Luke, a lot me to say to you, whatever. Reporter whatever. Go red sox, toures hometown, Boston Red Sox. Well let him know. Dana milbank has been keeping an eye on all of these hearings and youve seen much such hearings, h hypocrisy is not unique to today, also a grain, almost like a sabotage coverup, they were trying to do things to prevent the same program they are talking about today from working. Two examples here from congressman elmers as said previously if any of congresss work ended up in a delay to enrolling people, i wouldnt be unhappy about that. Another one, congressman said if you want to sign up, youve got to call hhs. Well say, look, call Kathleen Sebelius office if you want to figure that ouxt that was pursuant to something called navigator in the last few months. The bottom line, you have people saying i hope you have trouble signing up. Whats the difference today . I think actually if anything today there was less venom than usual because i think sebelius disarmed them a bit with the taking of responsibility, the apologies that luke was talking about there. They were just not set for that. So instead they seem to be casting her as dorothy in the wizard of oz. I dont want to theres a spoiler alert here but it turns out okay for dorothy in the wizard of oz and not so well for the flying monkeys, which is pretty much what the republicans were looking like today as they went after her. I think it set some of them back on their heels because they were expecting to have her pointing fingers this way at the contractors or this way at somebody else, whereas she was saying, yep, we screwed it up and sorry about it. The rest of it is intact. It was a interm i hadable three and a half hours. But she seemed to have been relatively unscathed. Dana, i have to tell you, im sitting here in front of a derveg and want to bang my head up against it. When im listening to luke replay clips from the hearing which i watched almost entirely as well, it strikes me that yes, we have problems with the website, no doubt about that, everyone on the democratic side at least wants those to be fixed. But republicans are folk ug s on things like whether or not Kathleen Sebelius will buy insurance on the exchange not designed for her because she already has Employer Health insurance. Democrats on other hand are trying to defend the website. It just left me asking the question, and i dont mean this to be snarky or simplistic, but what are these hearings actually accomplishing . Who are they really for . Are they actually doing any good in solving the problems that were facing with this law right now . No, but they are doing something in terms of perpetu e perpetuating the problem. That gets back to the previous question. There has been an element of sabotage in slowing these down, the exchanges are not working in states where there are republican governors not participating in the exchanges. In the larger picture here, if the republicans continue to cast doubt on obama care, make it look like a disaster in all areas and all its manifestations, it means the young people they need to get to enroll in the program dont want anything to do with the disaster an it becomes a selffulfilling prophecy. So there is logic to having hearings and complaining about the thing, regardless of what they are complaining about and they were pretty much throwing the whole kitchen sink in there. Dana, that logic works out in the short term, the Republican Party gets to score some political points and cast seeds of doubt. But in the long term, isnt the big the real problem for the Republican Party because they dont wheres there alternative . Does the Republican Party have an alternative for what comes after they say they repeal the Affordable Care act, obama care . Will they grow to rule the day they did it that people realize all of the protections they have now as a result of obama care are stripped away . Well, thats the big question. If obama care succeeds theyll regret the effort to be campaigning against it. Just as they republicans back long ago regretted the effort to try to repeal social security. But they are gambling that democrats only healthcare now, just not obama care but if anything goes wrong anywhere, if you dont like your doctor or hospital, they are going to blame obama and obama care. If Health Care Costs continue to go up as they very likely will if people continue to lose their insurance, as they always have, people will figure they will blame obama care. They are making a longterm gamble that the program wont work and trying to ensure that. This period, if you think about it, should be a blissful moment for the president who has been fighting for Health Care Reform for five years now. That day has come, its here, you have the exchanges open in 50 states. You are more and more governors seem like they are embracing the Health Care Expansion for the poor. This has been one of the toughest weeks since the bill was signed three years ago. You have to ask the question, he has got to explain a lot in this speech later today. Obviously Kathleen Sebelius took a lot of blame this morning saying im responsible for this. Is this the moment for the president to say, you know what, im at fault here. Do you think this is the time for him to take the blame . I dont think he wants to get in an argument with Kathleen Sebelius trying to blame herself and president trying to blame himself. Ultimately it doesnt matter who is taking the blame or what the president says up there in boston or what the secretaries say. If this program is not fixed in the next six weeks or so, they have a huge problem. They can say whatever they want now. Whats really going to determine the outcome is whether the thing actually gets fixed and gets fixed quickly. If that can be done, all of this will be remembered as a blip. If they cant get that fixed, nothing that they can say now is going to prevent them from a lot of misery down the road. You dont always know if its a blip when youre inside it, but we move away from messaging into the policy impact. Dana milbank, thanks for your reporting today. Pleasure. We turn from the politics to the technical side of things. The website having some extra troubles even today. Were getting ready for the president S Health Care remarks as the cycle rolls on the day before halloween 2013. [ fishing rod casting line, marching band playing ] [ male announcer ] the rhythm of life. [ whistle blowing ] where do you hear that beat . Campbells healthy request soup lets you hear it in your heart. [ basketball bouncing ] heart healthy. [ mm. ] great taste. [ tapping ] sounds good. Campbells healthy request. Mm mm good. ® rely on unitedhealthcare for their medicare coverage. If youre looking at your options, see why aarp medicare plans from unitedhealthcare could be right for you. As you know, medicare doesnt cover everything. Thats why its important to consider your choices. Aarp medicare plans offer a range of options, including plans that help lower your prescription costs or let you enjoy extra wellness benefits. And all these unitedhealthcare plans are backed by a commitment to quality and service. Call or go online today to find out more. With over 30 years of medicare experience, unitedhealthcare can connect you with the right coverage to help you enjoy a healthier life. Millions of people have chosen aarp medicare plans from unitedhealthcare. So join them and see what these plans can do for you. Call unitedhealthcare today or go online to learn more. It will take until the end of november. It isnt fair for the American Public to take our word for it. I have to fix this problem. You have confidence dm november 30th . I do. It was testing temporary authority yes or no. Yes or no has an end to end security test on healthcare. Gov went live, yes or no . I will find out exactly what testing they are doing. I know they are doing simultaneous testing as new code is loaded. Kathleen sebelius this morning on the websites. Technicali technical issues, the system was down again today. They were suggested to apply by phone instead. A new poll on the rollout shows 37 of americans think these glitches are short term technical issues and can be corrected. Another third fear they are longterm issues with the overall design that cannot be corrected. 30 say its too soon to know for sure. For the real story of whats happening with the tech issues and repairs, we turn to dan ackerman at cnet. Com. Someone who understands the technical side of this better than myself or any of us at this table. Help break this down in terms of glitches with the website. What do you see as most problematic and likely the longest to fix and what do you see as more promising . I think that the problems weve seen are kind of systemic for whenever you launch a really big high profile popular web property. Anyone who has worked on any sort of project management for Something Like that, knows launches dont go smoothly. Were enough weeks out into the live site now that its a little disturbing that they dont have more of this under control. I actually went on today to click around and see what the experience is like and i ran into the same error message you just showed showing that i couldnt sign up. Thats a pretty ridiculous message to give someone this far into it. The administration has been firm, we play the clips of Kathleen Sebelius, november 30th, she feels confident the website will be fixed. When you have a big technical challenge like this, is it realistic that you can sort of set a date and know for certain that the problems will be fixed by that time, or do you think thats more optimistic thinking . Its hard to set an exact date and say were going to have exactly this stuff done. You can set a date and say lets figure out what the top priority things are to fix by then to let people complete the first few steps or what we call a minimal viable project and thats where they should have started from, decide what that kind of minimally viable product, actually work on game one and work on that point. Maybe let people sign up and register and leave information there and email them later, come back and complete the process when more resources are available. Maybe they should work towards that for the november date so no one gets locked out. On september 6 kt, cgi sent a memo to hhs warning that there were quote, open risks involved with the website. The question is, if say you were at hhs and advising the secretary about what to do and you got that memo, would you have advised the government to go ahead with the october one launch date knowing what was in that memo . Im kind of the Consumer Media side of things. When you want to launch a property, sometimes you have a hard deadline, maybe something sold against it or promised to somebody really high upstairs and cant move that. That being said, you do Pay Attention to warnings you get. What you have in this case, a lot of different contractors and departments, one group is doing design, another doing the database and another doing policy for it. And they werent quite all working together as smoothly as they should, maybe because they didnt have a head task master keeping everybody on track and keeping everybody communicating. Thats such a key thing. Its hard to say if you have a particular warning from one guy that there was a problem with this or problem with that that you stop the entire train in order to do something about it. You know, another piece of this on the one hand, people can really freak out when the website doesnt work and facebook went down recently, people lost their minds and didnt need it for Like Health Care or something really big. They went to twitter to complain about it and i heard from adults, not just young people. On the other hand, if you compare what weve been covering today, a certain level of obsession from some members of congress there in the Political Class and some the media to where the country is at, the new poll we have out today, nbc wall street journal shows when you total up the number of people who think its short term and too soon to tell, the vast majority of the country says give it time. What do you think of that reaction versus the way people feel when they are looking at the website thats not exactly as fast as they expect it to be . The internet and Technology Works great until the one thing you want to do is not working, whether thats facebook or twitter or want to buy a concert at ticket master and the site is down. This is a scaleability problem for the internet. Its almost impossible to launch any kind of web tool or online property thats going to be able to scale to the massive amount of people on day one and at the same time just have it work in a normal way for everybody the rest of the time. A great example, the first day you can preorder a new iphone, try going to the at t website, its not going to work for you. Even better example, grand theft auto 5, made a billion dollars and when they turned on the online service, it didnt work for weeks. Its almost impossible to scale up like that quickly for that first day rush. I spent hours online trying to get grand theft auto ari will make fun of facebook but he was throwing a tantrum in the office it went down. You saw me, i was freaking out. I could hear him screaming in washington. Thanks for the tech inside. We appreciate it. Facebook fans have their own opinions whether or not Kathleen Sebelius should be fired over this. No, but oversight Management Training would help. And ryan insists, fire her, if this was in the private sector, she would have been fired right off the bat. Make sure you check out our new website, thecycle. Msnbc. Com. The 50 greatest brake throughs since the invention of the wheel, spoiler alert. The health care wnt website is not one of them. Well go live to boston. Stick with us. Huh, fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. Everybody knows that. Well, did you know that when a tree falls in the forest and no ones around, it does make a sound . Ohhh. Ohhh. Oh boy im falling. Everybody look out ahhhhh. Ugh. Little help here. Geico. Fifteen minutes could save you. Well, you know. An