Biden vaccine website pledge invokes the ghosts of Obamacare

Almost a decade ago, Jeff Zients was asked to rescue Obamacare’s online sign-up system — a task that proved pivotal to the presidency.

Now the head of the White House Covid response team has six weeks to roll out another website to help millions of people sign up for coronavirus vaccines and make good on President Joe Biden’s pledge to get life back to something close to normal by midsummer.

He’ll have to develop a fully functioning, one-size-fits-all national online appointment system for vaccine-seekers who now are spending hours on end dialing phone numbers or hitting “refresh” on websites trying to get an appointment. With more than enough shots expected for every adult in the U.S. by May 1, Zients will have to design a virtual on-ramp that can handle millions of newly eligible people seeking appointments without crashing.

Zients — along with his longtime wingman Andy Slavitt, now senior advisor for the White House Covid response team — led and oversaw the 2013 effort to fix the calamitously broken HealthCare.gov. After a very wobbly start, sign-ups exceeded expectations in that first year.