WASHINGTON – A strain of virulent and intensely-patriotic virus is to blame for the technical problems that have wracked the new health care exchange websites set up by the Affordable Care Act, according to a report. The virus—which was first detected on October 1, shortly after the exchange websites went live—has caused web pages to load slowly or not at all, and is reportedly “sick of Big Government and Obama’s socialist agenda.”

The websites—which are designed to let consumers purchase health insurance in an online “exchange” where providers compete for business—experienced difficulties as soon as they became operational early this month. Several of the sites crashed, and thousands of users were unable to access key pages.

Originally, unexpectedly high traffic was blamed for the so-called “glitches,” but experts now say that a virus with a “proud, small-government ideology” is responsible.

“From the looks of it, this virus chose the Obamacare websites as targets because it really hates government intrusion into the free market,” said Ken Fourier, a website engineer working with the federal government to address the problem. “The virus believes that President Obama is definitely a socialist, probably a Muslim, and perhaps the Antichrist, and decided to strike at the heart of his greatest legislative victory.”

Fourier said that the virus, which self-identifies as a member of the Tea Party, left messages buried in code announcing its intentions. “The virus said that it wouldn’t stop messing with the websites until Obama resigns from office,” Fourier explained. “It also demanded that Glenn Beck replace Obama once he’s gone, but that’s probably just wishful thinking.”

The health care exchange websites—which cost over $400 million to implement—are still experiencing significant technical problems related to the virus, which reportedly said that America is being destroyed by “lazy moochers who want everything for free.”

“It’s not entirely clear where this virus came from or who designed it,” Fourier said. “But we do know that it’s pissed off, and apparently listens to a significant amount of talk radio.”