( CNN ) -- At points , Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius sounded downright Orwellian in her testimony before Congress on Wednesday , such as when she explained that `` the website never crashed . It is functional , but at a very slow speed and very low reliability and has continued to function . '' Prolonged periods of minimum usefulness , perhaps , but do n't call it a `` crash , '' she said with a straight face . On the other half of the television screen , CNN showed a live shot of HealthCare.gov with the message displayed , `` The system is down at the moment . '' But in the world of Obamacare , a mandate is an `` option , '' expensive is `` affordable , '' and now apparently failure is `` function . '' Of course , the problem with Obamacare is n't just the website , and the loss in credibility is n't just the secretary 's . President Barack Obama and other supporters of the law spent years telling the American people that `` if you like your health care plan , you will be able to keep your health care plan . Period . '' They said detractors who suggested otherwise were lying . They said Republicans were just trying to scare people . The President and his allies were the dishonest ones , as is now clear to everyone . Even while they were promising Americans nothing would change if they liked their policies , `` the administration knew that more than 40 to 67 percent of those in the individual market would not be able to keep their plans , even if they liked them , '' as NBC News reported this week . Already more than 2 million people have had their insurance plans canceled -- three times as many as have signed up for Obamacare . Yet the President continues to insist , as he did Wednesday in Boston , that `` if you had one of these substandard plans before the Affordable Care Act became law '' -- of course , it was the law that made them `` substandard , '' by definition -- `` and you liked that plan , you were able to keep it . '' In the same speech , he took credit for liberating Americans from those `` substandard '' policies . This is as good an example of `` double-think '' as anything we 've seen in American politics . While the President and the other pitchmen of Obamacare have certainly lost credibility , however , Sebelius in particular needs to be held accountable for the launch failures . She added the problem of terrible management on top of the law 's many flaws , and in doing so has put the health , financial security and personal information of hundreds of thousands of Americans at risk . Across the country there are people who will have to buy insurance through the exchanges in just a few months , some because Obamacare caused their policies to be canceled , some because Obamacare caused their employers to dump their coverage . Many of these people will face steep new costs that they were n't anticipating . But today , a full month after the exchanges went live , Americans who visit HealthCare.gov to find out what coverage they and their families will have and how much it will cost them must spend hours of frustration trying to navigate a broken system . Even more alarming , the secretary 's bad execution of the President 's bad plan could put thousands of Americans ' personal information at risk . Sebelius told Rep. Mike Rodgers on Wednesday that she would have to get back to him on whether there had ever been a complete security test of the system . When the person who is supposedly overseeing a system into which hundreds of thousands of people are entering their personal information says she will `` get back to you '' about whether there has been thorough security testing , it is terrifying . And on top of everything else , the exchange website is a complete boondoggle . Sebelius testified the government has spent almost $ 175 million on HealthCare.gov so far , and the real tab will surely be much higher after the emergency repairs . Already , this is substantially more than Apple spent to develop the iPhone , and even ( as I pointed out recently ) more than NASA spent on the Mars Pathfinder mission . It likely makes HealthCare.gov the most expensive website ever built , and certainly the most expensive not to function -- although perhaps that word no longer means what we thought it did . These failures of management make the pain of a bad law even worse . I oppose the law . I have always opposed the law . I believe it will fail and can not be improved . But most of all , honesty counts in public officials , and after Sebelius ' testimony Wednesday she should have lost her credibility even in the eyes of Obamacare 's supporters . It 's time to offer her the option of mandatory retirement . The opinions expressed in this commentary are those of Newt Gingrich .
Newt Gingrich : Sebelius sounded Orwellian when she said website never `` crashed '' it was a technical glitch. Gingrich says they will be forced to try to navigate a dysfunctional website . Sebelius should be replaced as health and human services secretary , he says .