Obamacare Success Story Becomes a Failure; Obamacare Success Story Becomes a Failure
ROMANS: Did the Obama administration know the federal healthcare.gov website was dead on arrival? Newly disclosed reports reveal that key officials were actually warned months ago - months ago that the site would not be ready for its October 1st launch date. News that will only add fuel to the fire ahead of two Obamacare hearings to kick off next hour in Washington. And then there's this. A woman the president touted as one of the Obamacare success stories is now telling a different story. CNN's senior White House correspondent Jim Acosta joins us live from Washington with that. Good morning, Jim.</s>JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Christine and John. That's right, President Obama mentioned Jessica Sanford in a speech that he gave in the Rose Garden here at the White House last month about Obamacare and its rollout. He acknowledged at time that there were problems with healthcare.gov. But he pointed to the story of Jessica Sanford, a 48-year-old single mom from Washington state who had bought what she considered to be affordable health insurance on that state's health exchange. She was so excited about purchasing that insurance that she wrote an e-mail to the president thanking him, basically, for passing the Affordable Care Act. And the White House was so moved by Jessica Sanford's e-mail, that they included it in the president's remarks on October 21st. Here's a bit of those comments from the president.</s>BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I recently received a letter from a woman named Jessica Stan -- Jessica Sanford in Washington state. And here's what she wrote. "I am a single mom, no child support, self-employed, and I haven't had insurance for 15 years because it's too expensive. I was crying the other day when I signed up. So much stress lifted." Now that is not untypical for a lot of folks like Jessica who have been struggling without health insurance. That's what the Affordable Care Act is all about.</s>ACOSTA: But in the days following that speech from the President, Jessica Sanford tells CNN that she started to receive letters from the Washington state health exchange, explaining that the tax credit that they initially told her she was going to get was not going to happen. That raised the price of her health care plan that she was going to buy from Washington State's health exchange. She now says because of that -- and we're showing some of those documents on screen. Because of that, she can no longer afford to buy insurance in Washington State and now at this point she doesn't think she's going to have health care coverage come the beginning of this year, this coming year. And I talked to Jessica Sanford late last night about all of this. Here is what she had to say.</s>JESSICA SANFORD: It was like riding a big roller coaster. You know they have my credit card. They have the payment date. And then, you know, once again I'm knocked down. And this time it's to zero. And at my rate of pay, with my family size, I just don't understand why I wouldn't get at least a little help with the tax credit. It was a huge disappointment. And especially since I had -- my story had been shared by the President and I felt like, you know -- I just felt really embarrassed that he had quoted my story and then come to find that the Washington health plan finder, the Web site here in our state, had grossly miscalculated or are having a problem figuring their tax credits. And so at least for right now, I don't -- I'm not going to be getting insurance.</s>ACOSTA: Now we did talk to officials with the Washington State Health Care Exchange and those officials have responded to us that they're looking into Jessica Sanford's matter, but they have not yet reached any sort of conclusion on that front. Meanwhile on another front, the White House is dealing with another embarrassing revelation today. And that is a report from a consultant that was advising the Department of Health and Human Services. That report was handed over to CNN last night by the House Energy and Commerce Committee. That report that states that last spring top administration officials, including Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and officials over here at the White House were told that there were problems with the development of healthcare.gov, the Web site, the federal Web site, of course, where people can go online and buy insurance. And according to a White House official, we just received a statement from a White House official that they're saying, quote, "Flags were definitely raised throughout the development of the Web site", talking about this report released by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, but they are saying over here at the White House, nobody, quote, "anticipated the size and scope of the problems we experienced once the site was launched." So Christine and John, more questions for this White House about the rollout of the President's signature health care achievement, legislative achievement.</s>ROMANS: I think it's pretty clear no one anticipated the size of potential problems and they've got a lot to fix. Jim Acosta, CNN's senior White House correspondent. Thanks, Jim.</s>ACOSTA: You bet.</s>ROMANS: All right all new in the next hour of the CNN NEWSROOM moms across the country took to social media to give the Education Secretary a little piece of their minds.</s>BERMAN: Yet another headache for the administration. Now after fierce backlash, Arne Duncan is saying he's sorry for his comment about white suburban moms but he's not backing down from what he says prompted the comment. We'll hear from both sides. That's new at 10:00.