Kathleen Sebelius: Healthcare.gov ‘worked like … a fax machine’

Former Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius weighed in on her rocky tenure in an interview with USA Today which was released late Tuesday evening.

In that interview, Sebelius had some harsh words for the functionality of Healthcare.gov, in addition to Obamacare consultant Jonathan Gruber.

When asked if she felt like a scapegoat for the failures of Healthcare.gov, Sebelius said no.

“I think that I was the CEO of a big company with an important rollout and health care.gov was something that had been promised to work smoothly, to work like you were buying an airline ticket using your app on your computer,” she said. “Instead it worked like buying an airline ticket using your fax machine.”

When it comes to Gruber, Sebelius said he was “an architect” on the 2006 Massachusetts health care plan widely known as Romneycare, but not on Obamacare.

She said while was hired as a consultant and met with some staffers, she never personally met with him.

“Maybe he was in a large room; he could have been on a phone call. But in terms of small meetings, discussing policy, that never happened,” she said.

Gruber is scheduled to testify next week before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committe next week.

“I have no idea what Dr. Gruber is going to say, but frankly I don’t think that it’s relevant in terms of his personal opinions of what happened,” Sebelius said. “He was not author of the bill itself. He didn’t influence the members of Congress who actually wrote the legislation. He is making some headlines, which is unfortunate because I think he’s harming the very product that he helped to push forward.”