Revealed: Obama had talks with HHS Secretary Sebelius 18 TIMES before disastrous Obamacare roll-out despite claims he was unaware of problems -- By David Matosko, DailyMailOnline.co.uk

 

Kathleen Sebelius was in contact with the West Wing at least 18 times in the year before the glitchy healthcare.gov launch

Her calendar shows seven occasions where she and the president were scheduled to discuss his health insurance overhaul

Sebelius claimed on CNN that Obama was not informed about problems before the buggy website went live

Obama told reporters in a press conference that he didn't expect the online rollout to be as disastrous as it was

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was in direct contact with President Barack Obama at least 18 times between October 2012 and October 2013, including seven occasions where her draft calendar showed Obamacare as the topic of conversation.

The news appears to contradict her insistence that Obama was in the dark about problems plaguing the ill-fated healthcare.gov website in the months leading up to its October 1, 2013 launch.

The Hill newspaper reported Thursday that documents released through a Freedom of Information Act request show meetings, events and phone calls where the two were together.

They also show at least three breakfast or lunch meetings with close Obama adviser Pete Rouse, along with scheduled calls or meetings with presidential confidante Valerie Jarrett and White House chief of staff Denis McDonough.

The Obamacare website was plagued with crashes, unscheduled outages and slow response times in its first months online, causing the White House to recruit former administration official Jeff ZIents to turn it around.

Throughout, Sebelius insulated the Oval Office from criticism about how the website's expensive building and disastrous unveiling were handled.

During an October 22, 2013 interview on CNN, host Sanjay Gupta asked Sebelius whether or not Obama knew of the problems behind the scenes.

'No, sir,' she replied.

Three weeks later, Obama denied getting a heads-up about the online disaster that would soon come.

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