(Above: Sean Hannity calls the ObamaCare hotline)

After the president gave out an ObamaCare hotline number for individuals to call if (when) they’re having trouble signing up through healthcare.gov, talk radio show personality Sean Hannity decided to give it a call live on the air.

“Welcome to the health insurance marketplace,” an automated female said to begin the call.

After some awkward crosstalk between the automated system and Hannity, a call center operator named Erling Davis came on the line.

“Are a lot of people calling because they’re having trouble?” Hannity asked.

“Right now, from what I’ve heard, our system is down for, like, the next 42 hours,” Davis replied. “So no one is able to get in.”

Davis said people have been complaining about not being able to sign up through the online marketplace, but they simply encourage people to keep trying.

“How come it’s so hard to get on this website?” Hannity asked.

Davis told the conservative talk radio host that the helpline operators have been coached to tell callers that the problems are being caused by the high volume of people attempting to access the healthcare.gov website. She then read a script that she was instructed to follow:

Thanks for your interest in the health insurance marketplace. We are having a lot of visitors trying to use our website right now. This is causing some glitches for some people trying to create an account or log in. Keep trying and thanks for your patience. You might have better success during off-peak hours like later at night or early in the morning. We’ll continue working to improve the site so you can get covered.

Hannity continued to pepper the extremely polite operator with questions.

“Did you know they spent $634 million dollars to get that website up and going… What do you think of that?” he asked.

“Oh my gosh, I don’t know what to say,” Davis replied, noticeably surprised. “I did not know that. That’s a lot of money.”

“$634 million and three years to get this thing up and running, and look at how bad it is. Isn’t that crazy?” Hannity quipped.

“Yes sir, it is,” she responded.

Finally, Hannity asked if Davis had received any calls from individuals who seemed to like their experience with the new ObamaCare online marketplace.

“Ummm, not really,” she replied with a laugh.

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