Racing to fix the federal healthcare insurance exchange by the end of the month, the White House this week defended a new strategy of directing consumers to insurer websites, whose intentions might not fully align with the best interests of the consumer.

After nearly a month-and-a-half of continuing technical failure on the federal Healthcare.gov website, the Obama Administration has accepted technical help from those with experience operating online insurance websites: private insurance companies.

Reportedly, those insurance companies are jumping at the chance to assume greater responsibility for the technical aspect of enrolling consumers in their plans, though with one large caveat involving income-based government subsidies. According to anonymous sources quoted in The Washington Post, insurers argue that they should be allowed to keep overpayments on income-based government subsidies, as they must use the error-prone federal system to assess individual qualifications for government aid.

Aside from that controversy, insurers might not serve the consumer’s best interest, given they are only required by law to inform the public of the existence of other plans, but not competitive pricing. The side-by-side comparison of health insurance plans and their prices is a key feature of the federal healthcare exchange.

“One key question is whether insurance company advertising will accurately reflect the benefits people can get from the Affordable Care Act [known as Obamacare] or if they will attempt to use fear and uncertainty to push people into a particular plan to increase their profits at customers’ expense,” said Eddie Vale, a strategist with Obamacare advocacy group Protect Your Care.

However, those problems would be short-lived, the White House said this week. “We are working 24-7 to ensure that the site is working smoothly for the vast majority of users by the end of November,” Chris Jennings, deputy assistant to the president for health policy, said.

In a more detailed look on Friday, the administration’s new adviser on the federal healthcare website, Jeffrey Zients, reported progress was stalled by new problems as higher volumes of visitors exposed new software bugs. Although convalescing, the Healthcare.gov website is “a long way from where it needs to be,” he said.

Meanwhile, conservatives continued to deride the administration’s failure to fix the exchange glitches in hopes the Affordable Care Act would be reversed. On Wednesday, the 2013 Country Music Awards took a political turn as musicians Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood satirized Obamacare in a sing-song skit wherein they attempted to enroll in a health plan, only to be stymied by a faulty website.

"Hey do you have that Obamacare?" Underwood asks Paisley. "It's great. I started signing up last Thursday, and I'm almost done."

Known for pop cultural references in his music, Paisley failed to mention alternative plans to insure underserved residents in his home state of West Virginia. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Affordable Care Act would make 18 percent of the state’s residents eligible for subsidized healthcare plans, potentially insuring 285,000 people currently lacking health insurance.