Sebelius on the spot

Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has taken center stage in the firestorm over ObamaCare’s dysfunctional online enrollment system.

Republicans on the Sunday political shows repeatedly singled out the secretary and called for her resignation over the disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov.

The calls for Sebelius’s ouster come amid rising pressure on President Obama to hold deputies accountable for the site’s failures. Obama’s critics and allies have both urged him to make “heads roll” over the system’s problems.

{mosads}Sebelius has said she’s not resigning, and the White House has stood by her so far. 

“The secretary does have the full confidence of the president,” White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters earlier this month.

But as the latest target for critics’ fire, she’s sure to feel the heat from Republicans on Wednesday when she makes her first appearance before Congress on the rollout.

The secretary’s testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee is likely to bring even more energy to GOP criticism of HealthCare.gov.

A hearing last week saw government contractors shift blame among themselves and toward HHS, which served in a crucial role as “systems integrator” of the enrollment site.

Sebelius’s trip to Capitol Hill comes as the White House tries to complete a wide-ranging effort at damage control in the face of criticism from both friends and foes.

Former budget director Jeffrey Zients was appointed chief fixer of HealthCare.gov and within days, set a deadline of Nov. 30 for the repair effort to be complete.

The decision led some to speculate that Sebelius was being sidelined, a conclusion the White House denies.

The secretary’s public role has remained largely the same over the last six months as she travels around the country to promote ObamaCare in states where leaders have disparaged the law.

These trips rarely drew much media attention before the marketplaces debuted with problems on Oct. 1, and the secretary is seen at adept in avoiding negative press.

But in the last four weeks, several comments from Sebelius have gone viral and opened up new fronts for her and the administration to defend.

A week after the Oct. 1 rollout, Sebelius told Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart that she didn’t know how many people had enrolled in healthcare coverage under the new system.

The remark drew attention to HHS’s decision not to release enrollment figures until mid-November, a move some have interpreted as stonewalling until the numbers look more positive for the administration.

More recently, Republicans seized on Sebelius when she said she doesn’t “work for” the critics calling for her job.

The comment came as Sebelius defended her department’s effort to fix the site and said Republicans are hoping that ObamaCare fails.

HHS echoed this conclusion Sunday when asked to respond to the criticism of Sebelius.

“It is notable that many of the people calling on her to resign have also tried to repeal the law,” department spokeswoman Joanne Peters said in a statement.

“The Secretary works for the President and the American people, many of whom desperately need affordable healthcare. She is committed to getting this right and ensuring that HealthCare.gov is working smoothly.”

Still, some of the media spotlight has been unfriendly to the secretary as her public persona is increasingly linked to the botched website.

In one example, Sebelius’s attempts at downplaying the site’s problems were lampooned this weekend during “Saturday Night Live.” 

The sketch, which poked fun at Sebelius as an upbeat manager in denial, led a Republican senator to blast the secretary as a “laughingstock” on Sunday.

“She’s … the laughingstock of America,” Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said on ABC’s “This Week.” “She’s lost considerable credibility.”

But Sebelius had a proponent in Sen. Joe Manchin (W.Va.), a centrist Democrat who is pushing for a one-year delay in ObamaCare’s individual mandate.

“She’s very capable of bringing people together,” Manchin told ABC.

“I think she should stay, and I think she will get the job done, and I think she needs to bring people around her, and I think she can do that.”

Few Democrats have been as open this week in expressing confidence in Sebelius.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), who is up for reelection in 2014, demurred Sunday when asked about the secretary’s performance.

“There’s going to be plenty of time to place blame on who is responsible for whether it should have worked on Day One, or didn’t work, or whatever,” Shaheen told CBS.

“I think it’s too early to start placing blame,” she said.

In the meantime, HHS is touting progress on fixing the enrollment website and increasing rates of success for users.

In a blog post Saturday, Sebelius wrote that the marketplaces are facilitating eligibility determinations for tax subsidies in less than 1.2 seconds.

The post also praised the millions of communications happening between the enrollment system and federal agencies charged with verifying application details.

“We won’t stop working 24/7 until the door of HealthCare.gov are wide open. If you need health coverage, it’s our mission to be sure these tools are here for you,” Sebelius wrote.