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Obamacare 'disaster,' or routine maintenance?

The White House will take down parts of Healthcare.gov, the primary website for the Affordable Care Act, for several hours this weekend.
In this Thursday, Oct. 3, 2013 photo, a computer screen shows a website run by the federal government where people can enroll for health care exchanges
In this Thursday, Oct. 3, 2013 photo, a computer screen shows a website run by the federal government where people can enroll for health care exchanges under President Barack Obama's health care law, at a community meeting in Miami Gardens, Fla.

The White House said Friday it will take down parts of Healthcare.gov, the primary website for the Affordable Care Act, from 1:00 -5:00 a.m. Saturday and Sunday.

 HHS officials said that they will be taking down the “application part of the website” for scheduled maintenance this weekend, according to NBC News’ Kristin Welker.

The announcement was red meat for critics of Obamacare, who have been largely silent since the health care law rolled out earlier this week.

Speaker John Boehner said the administration’s announcement was proof that “the president’s health care law has been an unmitigated disaster.”

“What the administration wanted to dismiss as simple glitches have turned out to be a system-wide failure,” said Boehner in a statement. “The White House cannot even say how many Americans were able to navigate the fatally-flawed system to actually enroll in a plan. This announcement is more proof that we need to delay the law and provide basic fairness, just as Republicans have called for. How can this administration tax individuals for not purchasing a product from a website that doesn’t even work? We should not ask American families to comply with these onerous mandates, especially when big businesses have already been given exemptions. We need fairness for all.”

Healthcare.gov has been visited by millions of Americans since its launch on Tuesday. The initial response was so large that a number of delays and error messages were reported by users in some states.

President Obama acknowledged these delays from the Rose Garden Tuesday, saying that Americans should expect small bumps along the road.

“Consider that just a couple of weeks ago, Apple rolled out a new mobile operating system, and within days, they found a glitch, so they fixed it,” he said. “I don’t remember anybody suggesting Apple should stop selling iPhones or iPads or threatening to shut down the company if they didn’t. That’s not how we do things in America.”