Dive Brief:
- A group of 10 GOP senators have written a letter to President Obama asking him to fire HHS Kathleen Sebelius in the wake of the failure of HealthCare.gov.
- The senators say that she misled the public and the president about the issues with the healthcare exchange, claiming they were a result of high-volume use when they were actually deep-seated problems.
- According to the senators, HHS has spent more than $400 million on the site to date.
Dive Insight:
It's understandable that members of Congress are eager to figure out who to blame for the failure of the federal exchange, and that heads will roll as a result of the massive failure. And the shakeup has already started; CMS CIO Tony Trenkle has stepped down as a result of the healthcare.gov failure. However, it's worth considering that if Sebelius is replaced, her successor will have to take time to learning about the site and its problems, a process which could further delay getting the site to work at full capacity. This is a tricky call for President Obama.