Rick Santorum Questions Obama's 'Competence' After Obamacare Rollout Glitches

Santorum Questions Obama's 'Competence'

Former Pennsylvania senator and Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum said Sunday that the problems with the rollout of Obamacare call President Barack Obama's basic "competence" into question.

"This really feeds into the president's competence. That's the question that people have: Is the president competent to do his job?" Santorum said on CNN's "State of the Union." "There's a whole group of issues now that people are questioning."

Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, a Democrat and also a guest on the show, bristled at Santorum's remarks.

"I lose my patience with this nonsense," Dean said. "I fail to see how it has anything to do with the president’s competence."

Republicans have been hammering the Obama administration over dropped insurance plans and the technical problems plaguing the HealthCare.gov website that have prevented people from enrolling into new health care policies. Santorum said he'd recently spoken insurance industry insiders who had said the information they were getting through the Obamacare website was "garbage."

"You talk to anybody," Santorum said. "I talked some people in the insurance industry this morning, and they told me that most of the front end may be looking good. People may be able to get on and get responses, but the information coming out the back end to the insurance companies is still garbage. It's undecipherable."

While noting that he doesn't see Obamacare as "ideal" health care reform, Dean said most of the criticism aimed at the administration over the law is "right-wing talking points." Given the success of similar health care reform efforts in Massachusetts, Dean said Obamacare "can work."

"I do believe that the facts are going to be determined by what happens on the ground," he said. "And I think three months from now, a lot more people will have health insurance and a lot more people will be happy with all of this."

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