President Barack Obama met Wednesday with Senate Democrats facing re-election next year to discuss the problem-plagued health care rollout that could affect their races.
The White House confirmed Obama and Vice President Joe Biden met with 16 senators to describe fixes that are being made to the website for Americans to sign up for insurance under his signature health care law.
One attendee, Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware, said Obama “didn’t hesitate to accept responsibility for the issues that have slowed the law’s implementation and laid out the White House’s strategy for fixing them.”
Two other Democrats familiar with the meeting, which was not listed on the president’s public schedule, said it lasted about two hours and also included White House chief of staff Denis McDonough and Jeff Zients, the president’s troubleshooter for the website. Such a dedication of time by so many top-level officials reflects concern for the political fallout the problems could inflict.
The Democrats, who spoke on condition of anonymity since the meeting was private, said Obama kicked off the meeting and expressed that they all want the program to be successful, and then Zients gave a lengthy technical presentation. . .