The problems with the rollout of Obamacare are a "fever for the disease" — the disease being Obamacare itself, Louisiana Rep. John Fleming told Fox News.
"The terrible rollout that we see today is really a fever for the disease. The disease is, this is an ill-conceived idea, an ill-conceived concept. And it's being poorly executed," Fleming, a physician who is vice-chairman of the Republican Doctors Caucus, said Tuesday.
The rollout is an indicator of problems to come in implementing the healthcare law and needs to be reformed, Fleming maintained. Since its launch Oct. 1, the healthcare.gov website has been plagued with technical issues, preventing people from enrolling in the government's health care plan.
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"This terrible rollout, that's really an IT problem, is really symptomatic of the future problems we're going to see," Fleming said.
"The whole thing needs to be taken down. We need to go back and reform healthcare, once again, on a bipartisan basis," he added.
Fellow House member, Rep. Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, who is also a doctor and member of the Republican Doctors Caucus, echoed Fleming's sentiments. He also emphasized the premium hikes that many of his constituents are seeing in the Obamacare plan.
"Clearly, what we are seeing is a difficulty in signing up. We're seeing that, time and time again. Our constituents are responding to us in that manner," Wenstrup told Fox News Tuesday. "But, they are also responding with their increases in premium. It seems to be punishing healthy people more so than anyone else."
Obamacare administrators' inexperience in operating a business was also a concern, as the government attempts to implement a plan involving a large sector of the economy, Wenstrup said.
"We're looking at a situation right now where you have one of the largest business propositions that a country has ever had, but it's being run by people that have never run a business," he said.
At this point, the government should suspend the individual mandate and trim the scope of the program, Fox News Contributor Dr. Marc Siegel said Tuesday. Because of the lower payments Obamacare will give physicians, Siegel also predicted a doctor shortage for the plan.
"For them to make this better, they have to scale it back. They have to suspend the individual mandate for a year. They have to figure out how to deal with the doctor shortage," Siegel told Fox News.
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