Former White House spokesman Gibbs says he hopes people fired over ObamaCare glitches

FILE: Robert Gibbs, as White House press secretary, briefs reporters in Washington. (AP)

A former top Obama administration official is joining the chorus of voices slamming the White House for the rough launch of ObamaCare, saying he hopes some of those in charge of setting up the law’s website will be fired.

Robert Gibbs, who served as White House Press Secretary from 2009-2011, said in an interview with MSNBC Monday the first two weeks of open enrollment for the president’s health care overhaul were “bungled badly” and called it “excruciatingly embarrassing for the White House and for the Department of Health and Human Services.”

The government’s healthcare.gov site opened for enrollment on Oct. 1, but users are still having trouble breaking through the website's myriad problems just to sign up.

The Obama administration has repeatedly blamed the website’s problems on high traffic rather than a flawed website design.

"An extraordinary number of people are coming to check out HealthCare.gov. Traffic on the web site and at the call center continues to be high, suggesting a strong interest by consumers in learning about their health coverage options," HHS said in a statement to FoxNews.com last week.

However, Gibbs told MSNBC he does not believe that is the case.

“This was not a server problem, like, right, just too many people came to the website,” Gibbs said. “This is a website architecture problem.”

Gibbs said he does not believe that the problems currently plaguing ObamaCare will prove fatal for the law, as the open enrollment will continue through the end of March. However, he expressed worry that those trying to access the website would eventually give up after multiple failed attempts.

“I hope they are working day and night to get this done,” Gibbs said. “And when they get it fixed, I hope they fire some people that were in charge of making sure this thing was supposed to work. We knew there were going to be some glitches. But these were glitches that go, quite frankly, way beyond the pale of what should be expected."