Harry Reid not only denied that the new extension to the sign-up period for Obamacare was a “delay,” but he also blamed Americans’ Internet illiteracy for the lower-than-projected enrollment figures during his weekly press briefing on Wednesday.
“There’s no hiccup or delay,” the majority leader insisted. “We have hundreds of thousands of people who tried to sign up, and they didn’t get through.”
On Tuesday, the administration announced that it would allow some users to enroll past the original March 31 deadline if they had experienced problems during the process. Users will “self-attest” to the need for an extension.
Part of the problem with user difficulties may just come from people’s lack of familiarity with the Internet, Reid claimed.
“There are some people who are not like my grandchildren, who can handle everything so easy on the Internet, and these people need some extra time,” he explained. “The example they gave is a 62 year old woman came in to the store and said ‘I almost got it, but every time I just about got there, it would cut me off.’ We have a lot of people just like this, through no fault of the Internet, but people are not educated how to use the Internet.”