All problems with Heathcare.gov flowed from one bad decision, he said.

By Garance Franke-Ruta, TheAtlantic.com, Nov. 13, 2013

[....] on Wednesday, Washington Post columnist Gene Robinson asked the question on everyone's mind after the release of the first Obamacare enrollment numbers: "What the hell happened?"

The man to whom he addressed his question was health-care management expert Ezekiel J. Emanuel, a Wharton professor who served from 2009 to 2011 as a special advisor for health policy in the White House Office of Management and Budget.

"I'll give you a technical answer: I don't know," said Emanuel.

"The one thing that didn't happen is—and I've said this before," Emanuel continued, "is we needed a CEO who understood, who's a really great manager understood the health side—especially health insurance, because after all, what's the website, what's the exchanges if not health insurance—and understood how to make sure that... the e-commerce aspects were going to run well."

"No one ever got appointed to really do that of sufficient stature," said Emanuel. "You don't hand this to CMS. This isn't in their wheelhouse. This isn't something they can do.

"And I think if you had to pinpoint one thing that was that should have been done differently in hindsight, that's the thing," Emanuel added, "though I don't know it was hindsight, since I think a lot of people concurrently thought that is what ought to happen."  [.....]

My note: he said basically the same thing in appearances on two different shows on MSNBC this evening.