Bobby Jindal Embarrasses Himself By Blaming Liberalism for ACA Website Problems

Even by Fox News’ low standards, Gov. Bobby Jindal embarrassed himself by trying to blame liberalism for the ACA website’s problems.

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Transcript:

WALLACE: Question: how realistic do you think that that target is? And is this becoming — how big a problem do you think this is becoming to Democrats?

JINDAL: Chris, I think they’ll eventually fix the Web site. But let’s remember, this is the easy part. You know, the real critical issue is when it comes time to schedule your grandma’s cancer surgery, what’s going to happen then? I think this is symptomatic of a bigger problem, and I’ve long wondered, is this administration the most incompetent or the most liberal administration in recent history, I think this issue, this policy shows that — to quote Hillary Clinton — what difference does it make?

This is an incompetent rollout, but it’s symptomatic of a liberal ideology that believes government should be running our health care. So, I think this is just the tip of the iceberg. Eventually, they’ll fix the Internet problems. Maybe they’ll bring in Al Gore, you know, the guy who says he invented the Internet, maybe they’ll fix the Web site. But the bigger is, this is symptomatic. We don’t need the government running our health care.

Jindal was trying to score political points by connecting the failure of the ACA website to liberalism, but he made a fool of himself because what the ACA website problems also demonstrate is the failure of the Republican idea that privatization is always better. One of the reasons why healthcare.gov is such a mess is because private contractors were completely out of control on the project. Private contractors charge an average of 83% more than it would cost to use government employees to do the work, and most of the time the taxpayers don’t get what they pay for.

Gov. Jindal worked in all of the standard Republican misinformation about the ACA. The Affordable Care Act is not a government takeover of healthcare. Grandma doesn’t need to worry about her cancer surgery anymore that she would with private insurance, because Obamacare is private insurance.

Without even realizing it, Bobby Jindal made the case for more government involvement in healthcare. His performance on Fox News was an embarrassment, but Jindal wants to run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016. In order to become the GOP’s nominee, a candidate must be willing to break with reality and say things that are always inaccurate and sometimes also crazy.

The more Republicans try to score political points with the ACA, the more they are unintentionally making the case for a stronger law that goes beyond Obamacare.

Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and  Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association