President Barack Obama acknowledged Monday that the website that supports the new health care law, healthcare.gov, is not as efficient as it should be, but that a team of private sector experts are working around the clock to fix it.
"There's no sugar-coating it," Obama said int he Rose Garden, surrounded by the law's supporters. "No one is more frustrated than I am."
But Obama maintained in a 30-minute speech that the law is good, despite problems with the website.
"The essence of the law, the health insurance that's available to people is working just fine," Obama said. "The problem has been that the website that's supposed to make it easy to apply for insurance hasn't been working. The website has been too slow, people have been getting stuck during the application process."
Obama did not offer any timetable for the improvements, but said staff is working overtime.
"I want the cash registers to work, I want the checkout lines to be smooth and I want people to be able to get this great product," he said. "There's no excuse for these problems. These problems are getting fixed."
Republicans have criticized the launch, which began Oct. 1, after trying to delay or defund the law dozens of times. And they continued with that criticism Monday.
"It's time for folks to stop rooting for its failure," Obama said.