WASHINGTON — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Wednesday fiercely defended the administration’s decision to extend the deadline to enroll in a health insurance plan.
The deadline to enroll is next Monday, March 31, but people who tried to enroll but were unable to do so will now have until mid-April to request an extension, the Washington Post first reported. The extensions will be given based on an “honor system” — there will be no efforts to make sure the person actually did try to sign up before the deadline.
Speaker of the House John Boehner blasted the extension at a press conference Wednesday, The Hill reported.
“What the hell is this, a joke?” he asked.
Reid shot back at a press conference Wednesday afternoon: “The joke, I say to my dear friend John Boehner, is him, having more than 60 votes over there to terminate Obamacare.”
“It really does appear extremely disingenuous that they oppose anything that’s good about Obamacare, anything good about anything this administration tries to do,” he added.
Reid took issue with describing the administration’s action as a “delay.”
“There’s no hiccup or delay,” he insisted, as Democratic Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow said simultaneously, “It’s not a delay.”
A number of people were struggling to sign up, “through no fault of the internet, but because people are not educated how to use the internet,” Reid said.
“So this is not anything other than the right thing to do, for heaven’s sake. I don’t know how many people thousands of thousands of people will be able to have healthcare as a result of extending this time.”
