Coburn: Government ‘incompetent’ in ObamaCare rollout

The rollout of ObamaCare has been incompetent, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) said Monday. 

“It’s not that the ideas are all bad in the Affordable Care Act, it’s that we’re incompetent to roll it out and we’ve proven that today,” he said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

The website hosting ObamaCare, HealthCare.gov, has experienced numerous technical difficulties since its Oct. 1 unveiling. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius will testify before Congress on the issues Wednesday. 

Contractors responsible for building the website largely blamed the Obama administration in testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee last Thursday about the problems. 

{mosads}On Monday, Coburn and Democratic strategist David Axelrod erupted into a heated debate about the healthcare law’s costs. 

“Medicare is bankrupt,” Coburn said. “Twenty percent of everything that’s spent in Medicare is defrauded from the government. Over $80 billion a year is defrauded. How is that running for us?”

Coburn, Sen. Richard Burr (R-S.C.) and 20 other Senate colleagues, he said, had proposed an alternative to ObamaCare. 

“Go read about Patient’s Choice Act,” Coburn said. “Every aspect you’re seeing that’s positive in the Affordable Care Act was in that bill, except ours doesn’t cost $2.6 trillion. Ours isn’t run by the government. Ours is run by the private-sector, with transparency, and mandates that you have to be transparent.”