This is especially true for Democratic senators such as Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Kay Hagan of North Carolina facing tough re-election battles next year in states Obama lost. A group of these vulnerable Democratic senators recently signed a letter to embattled Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius asking that the March 31st open enrollment deadline for Obamacare get pushed back.  Republicans in the House, meanwhile, may seek to increase the pressure this week by again voting to delay the mandate for individuals to buy insurance or face a tax penalty. Calls for an individual mandate delay, fiercely opposed by the administration, will likely becoming overwhelming if the federal website is not functioning seamlessly by Dec. 1. Even if the mandate is delayed, the millions of young, healthy and currently uninsured people the law depends on to make the economics work could ultimately decide paying the penalty is better than buying insurance. That could spark a "death spiral" for the law, an outcome that would be devastating for the Obama presidency and Democrats hopes in 2014 and beyond.  The hearings begin on Tuesday but the main event comes Wednesday when Sebelius squares off against Republicans at a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing. Obama speaks on the health care law the same day at Faneuil Hall in Boston, the place then-Gov. Mitt Romney in 2006 signed the Massachusetts law cited as the model for Obamacare.  ALSO IN WASHINGTON THIS WEEK – The House-Senate budget conference begins Wednesday at 10 a.m. EDT with a meeting that should be little more than a photo-op and a chance for the 29 members to speechify on their priorities. No one in D.C. holds out much hope that the conference will produce any kind of "grand bargain" on spending, tax reform and entitlements.  There is some hope they could find a smaller bargain that replaces the 2014 sequester cuts with longer term entitlement changes. But that's also difficult in that Democrats won't agree to Social Security or Medicare cuts without significant additional tax revenues that Republicans view as impossible. The chances still seem greater that the committee fails and a much smaller group must cut another temporary deal to keep the government open and raise the debt ceiling again nearly next year.  — By Ben White, POLITICO's chief economic correspondent and a CNBC contributor. White also authors the daily tip sheet POLITICO Morning Money [politico.com/morningmoney] Follow him onTwitter @morningmoneyben.
Even if the website gets fixed by the end of November, as the White House promises, potentially bigger problems lie ahead.