White House Names Former Microsoft Exec To Run Healthcare.gov

The White House is rebooting HealthCare.gov's repairman.

Former Microsoft executive Kurt DelBene will take over the volunteer job of overseeing ongoing fixes to the federal Obamacare marketplace HealthCare.gov starting Wednesday, officials said.

DelBene is replacing management guru Jeffrey Zients, who was tapped by President Obama in October to manage the emergency repair job on that then-badly crippled website.

The switch comes at a critical time for HealthCare.gov, which has seen dramatic performance improvements under Zients. The site, which had very low enrollment levels in the first two months of operation because its tech troubles, now is engaged in a furious effort to sign up as many people as possible in new Affordable Care Act insurance by the New Year

DelBene, who retired last summer as president of the Microsoft Office division after two decades at the software behemoth, is the husband of US Rep. Suzan DelBene, (D-Wash), a fellow ex-Microsoft executive who was elected to Congress in 2012. Before Microsoft, DelBene was a management consultant with McKinsey and Company, and a software developer and systems engineer for AT&T Bell Laboratories.