Poll: White House Blames 'Volume,' But Majority Believe Healthcare.gov's Problems Hint at Broader Obamacare Problems

During today’s White House press briefing, spokesman Jay Carney blamed the rocky Obamacare rollout on traffic to the government-run health care exchange website.

“I think it is absolutely accurate to say that the volume far exceeded our expectations, and that the volume has driven the problems that we’ve seen and exposed some of the problems that we now know about,” Carney told reporters. “No one would argue with the assertion that there was an underestimation of the kind of volume that we were going to see.”

Certainly, no one would argue that the White House bungled many things, including estimating traffic to its website. But a majority do not think that traffic alone is causing the problems.

According to a new Washington Post poll, 56% of Americans believe that the problems plaguing the website are symptoms of a deeper disease.

Fifty-six percent of Americans say the website problems are part of a broader problem with the law’s implementation while just 40 percent see the website problems as an isolated incident. Reaction to federal insurance exchange website are deeply rooted in partisanship. More than eight in 10 Republicans say website troubles are a sign of broader implementation problems, while most Democrats call it an isolated incident. Independents resemble the public overall, with 55 percent seeing broader problems with implementation.

How, Washington Post, are independents’ thoughts about Obamacare “deeply rooted in partisanship?”

The poll finds that 49% oppose Obamacare while just 42% support it. 53% disapprove of the manner in which Obama has handled implementing the law.

The White House’s claim that “volume” accounts for Obamacare’s problems doesn’t add up. It claims that about 19 million have visited the site — that’s unique visits — over the course of its first three weeks. That works out to just over 904,000 visits per day, which is hardly a crushing volume for a site that was supposed to help millions of Americans purchase insurance by the end of the year. Tech experts have concluded that the site was badly built using 10-year-old technology, and may have to be overhauled completely.