海角大神

In a lot of ways, being president of the United States is pretty cool. You get your own plane, a mansion, and an enormous household staff. Your motorcade doesn鈥檛 have to stop at red lights. And when you retire, you can command more money just giving speeches than you鈥檒l ever need.

But there are times when it鈥檚 not hard to imagine the president saying, 鈥淭ake this job ...鈥�

Consider the fiasco known as the rollout of HealthCare.gov. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is the signature initiative of Barack Obama鈥檚 presidency. It鈥檚 his baby. And at the moment of truth 鈥� the Oct. 1 launch of the website that serves as the portal to the ACA鈥檚 new insurance market 鈥� it crashed upon takeoff. Even now, the prospects for smooth functioning by Nov. 30, as promised by top officials, aren鈥檛 looking good.

Then there鈥檚 that promise Mr. Obama kept making over and over again 鈥� that under his health-insurance reform, 鈥渋f you like your plan, you can keep it.鈥� Except, oops, that turned out not to be true for the more than 3 million Americans who have received cancellation notices.

At his press conference Thursday, in which Obama announced a major concession 鈥� insurers can offer people their old plans for another year 鈥� he also offered a window into the frustrations he has experienced over the past few weeks.

Perhaps nothing can compare with the embarrassment that Obama surely felt when HealthCare.gov made its ignominious debut, leading to questions about what he knew beforehand and when he knew it. News reports have indicated that high-level White House people were given a heads-up in mid-September that the site had problems.

When asked, Obama said he 鈥渨as not informed directly鈥� that the site would not be working as it was supposed to.

鈥淵ou know, I'm accused of a lot of things,鈥� Obama told reporters. 鈥淏ut I don't think I'm stupid enough to go around saying, this is going to be like shopping on Amazon or Travelocity, a week before the website opens, if I thought that it wasn't going to work.鈥�

Even a week after the launch, he said, 鈥渢he thinking was that these were some glitches that would be fixed with patches,鈥� instead of the broader systemic problems that were found. Those have taken much longer to fix and are still being worked on.

On the 鈥渒eep your plan鈥� promise, Obama鈥檚 confessional moment continued Thursday, as he turned 鈥渨e鈥� into 鈥淚.鈥�

鈥淵ou have an individual market that accounts for about 5 percent of the population,鈥� he said. 鈥淎nd our working assumption was 鈥� my working assumption was 鈥� that the majority of those folks would find better policies at lower cost or the same cost in the marketplaces.鈥�

For those who might not find a better deal in the marketplaces, he continued, the idea was that the 鈥済randfather clause鈥� 鈥� the provision of the law that allowed plans in place before the ACA passed to continue 鈥� would work 鈥渟ufficiently.鈥� But it didn鈥檛.

鈥淎nd again, that鈥檚 on us,鈥� Obama said, 鈥渨hich is why we鈥檙e 鈥� that鈥檚 on me.鈥�

鈥淎nd that's why I'm trying to fix it,鈥� he continued. 鈥淎nd as I said earlier ... that's something I deeply regret, because it's scary getting a cancellation notice.鈥�

It was a 鈥渇eel your pain鈥� moment reminiscent of former President Clinton, who, as it happened, helped to back Obama into the corner he was trying to get out of. Two days ago, the news website Ozy released an interview with Mr. Clinton, in which he said Obama should keep his promise and make sure Americans can keep their health plans if they want to.

Obama also felt the pain of fellow Democrats, some of whom face a tough reelection battle next year.

鈥淭here is no doubt that our failure to roll out the ACA smoothly has put a burden on Democrats, whether they're running or not, because they stood up and supported this effort through thick and thin,鈥� he said.

鈥淎nd I feel deeply responsible for making it harder for them rather than easier for them to continue to promote the core values that I think led them to support this thing in the first place.鈥�

While he was letting it all out, Obama also went after the federal procurement system for technology, an arcane area of government that has come in for heavy blame amid HealthCare.gov鈥檚 woes.

鈥淗ow we purchase technology in the federal government is cumbersome, complicated, and outdated,鈥� he said.

Unlike in his successful presidential campaigns, where he could gather top technology minds with relative ease, it doesn鈥檛 work that way once you鈥檙e the head of the executive branch. 聽

鈥淚f you're doing it at the federal government level, you're going through 40 pages of specs and this and that and the other, and there are all kinds of laws involved, and it makes it more difficult,鈥� Obama said. 鈥淚t's part of the reason why, chronically, federal IT programs are over budget, behind schedule.鈥�

The president looked ahead to the 鈥淢onday morning quarterbacking鈥� he would do on himself over HealthCare.gov, suggesting that he should have seen the problems coming.

鈥淭wo years ago, as we were thinking about this, we might have done more to make sure that we were breaking the mold on how we were going to be setting this up,鈥� Obama said. 鈥淏ut that doesn't help us now. We've got to move forward.鈥�