Obama 'defiant,' 'flippant' on Obamacare failures

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday charged the Obama administration with ignoring the numerous failures of Obamacare, and with continuing to implement the law despite rising healthcare costs and a new report that says the government can't even figure out who deserves health insurance subsidies under the law.

"It's completely ridiculous, and the administration's still struggling just to get a handle on the problem," McConnell said.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) charged Tuesday that the Obama administration is essentially ignoring various Obamacare implementation problems. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

Last week, the Inspector General for the Department of Health and Human Services said officials had failed to resolve 2.6 million "inconsistencies" in health insurance enrollment data, dealing mostly with citizenship status and income. That means millions of people may have enrolled for health insurance or received insurance subsidies without being eligible.

The report said about 90 percent of these issues could not be resolved.

McConnell said that rather than fix this problem, the administration seems content to continue to implement the law with no changes, which means ineligible people enrolled today may be enrolled again next year.

"Many individuals enrolled with the current flawed enrollment process will automatically be enrolled for the same taxpayer subsidies next year," McConnell said.

"They're defiant, defiant in the face of all this," he added. "This is precisely the kind of flippant attitude that's so infuriating to many of our constituents."

McConnell charged Democrats with essentially hiding from the problem, and hoping voters forget about these issues by the time the mid-term election rolls around.

"The Democratic plan seems to be, double down on the mess they've created, and to hope that Americans can be distracted enough to forget about it come November," he said. "Well, if that's the plan, it's not going to work."

McConnell said voters now see Obamacare as a "byword for broken promises and almost cartoonish inefficiency."

"You can keep your plan, you can keep your doctor, premiums will go down, the law will create millions of jobs," he said. "We knew the promises wouldn't hold up."