Former White House spokesman Robert Gibbs says it would be “inexplicable” if no one was fired for the botched rollout of healthcare.gov.
Appearing on MSNBC Monday morning, Gibbs told host Alex Wagner that he expected one or more people to be fired over the failure, probably by spring.
Gibbs: It will be inexplicable if somebody involved in the creation of the website doesn’t get fired. Or a group of people don’t get fired…We should get through the fixing of this before we clean house but I think it will be inexplicable if we get sometime in the spring and somebody at HHS or CMS or both haven’t been fired. There aren’t really any good excuses for not firing people. The “private sector velocity” should also include the velocity of moving somebody’s framed pictures out of their office and into a new job.
Gibbs did offer a time period for the firing, probably in April or May, but did not specify by name who would be on the block. HHS Secretary Sebelius is one possibility, another is Marilyn Tavenner who heads CMS. Finally, Henry Chao who was the CMS project manager seems like a good candidate for reaching private sector velocity.
The Hill reports that Democrats are also eager for a shake up of the President’s political team, which some see has having blinders on since the start of the 2nd term. Some would like to see Dan Pfeiffer, who they feel is responsible for the President’s “if you like your health care you can keep it” promise, to join Chao and Tavenner in the unemployment line.