Obama promotes embattled healthcare law in Texas

US President Barack Obama's embattled health secretary has rejected calls from Congress to take the glitch-plagued website of the president's health programme offline, though she acknowledged further work is needed.

Kathleen Sebelius was questioned by the Senate finance committee, six weeks after the launch of healthcare.gov.

'We're not there yet,' she said, identifying hundreds of needed repairs.

Meanwhile, Mr Obama travelled to Texas to promote the controversial law.

'Start Quote

You have said the American people should hold you accountable, which is why today I repeat my request for you to resign'

End Quote Pat Roberts Republican senator from Kansas

On Wednesday, committee chairman Max Baucus, a Democrat, suggested the Obama administration take down the online marketplace for Americans to purchase private health insurance until the kinks had been smoothed out.

'Why not shut down and do it right?' Mr Baucus asked.

But Ms Sebelius said such an action 'wouldn't delay people's cancer or diabetes or Parkinson's'.

'Aggressive schedule'

She said 'a couple hundred functional fixes' had been identified and that repairs have been made a 'priority'.

'We're not where we need to be,' she said. 'It's a pretty aggressive schedule.'

Republican members of the Senate panel also repeated calls for Ms Sebelius' resignation. Ms Sebelius, a former governor of Kansas, was appointed secretary of health and human services by Mr Obama in 2009.

'You have said the American people should hold you accountable, which is why today I repeat my request for you to resign,' Senator Pat Roberts said.

The 1 October launch of the insurance marketplace websites run by the federal and state governments was the culmination of more than three years of political combat in Washington over the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, signed into law by Mr Obama in 2010 and known to both sides as Obamacare.

Considered the largest overhaul of the US healthcare system since the 1960s, it aimed to extend health insurance coverage to the estimated 15% of the US population who lacked it. Those people receive no coverage from their employers and are not covered by US health programmes for the poor and elderly.

'Costly and inappropriate'

'Frustrating' glitches with Healthcare.gov Long sign-in wait times Log-in difficulties Insurance account creation problems Slow page loads Inadequate testing of security controls prior to system launch Service outages Crashes in data hub linking Obamacare system to Internal Revenue Service and other federal agencies Inadequate server capacity Sources: BBC reporting, news media accounts

But Healthcare.gov - akin to a shopping website for health insurance plans - has been plagued by glitches, especially long wait times to sign up and serious flaws on the back end where customers' data are processed and sent to insurance companies.

In addition, many Americans have been informed their insurance plans were being cancelled because they did not meet the new law's stringent requirements, despite Mr Obama's past insistence that people would be able to keep insurance plans they liked.

Republicans have seized on that, too, with some going as far as accusing Mr Obama of lying to the public during his campaign for the law's passage.

The Obama administration has declined to say how many Americans have actually enrolled in new policies through the websites, rankling Republicans who accuse it of withholding vital information.

They argue the website's problems reflect broader issues with the healthcare law.

Republicans view the health law as a costly and inappropriate government intrusion into the healthcare system, and have sought to undo or undermine it at every turn.

Aside from establishing the healthcare.gov health insurance marketplace website and others run by the states, the law bolsters coverage requirements for insurance firms, mandates that individuals carry insurance or pay a tax penalty, and offers subsidies to assist in the purchase of the insurance.

It also expands eligibility for the Medicaid government health programme for the poor.

Amid the fallout, the White House has said it will grant a six-week extension - until 31 March 2014 - in the healthcare law's requirement for individuals to buy insurance or face a tax penalty.

On Wednesday Mr Obama travelled to Republican-dominated Texas, where an estimated 23% of residents are uninsured.

The purpose of the trip is to urge Texas Republican leaders to embrace the healthcare law and expand eligibility for the Medicaid programme, according to the administration.