the tension in washington over scarce information. >> how much is this costing taxpayers money as a long-time washington reporter before you took this job obviously would blankley be something that you felt a right to know. will we get that information from hhs? >> i would address your question to hhs. i don't have that information. and this is an operation being run by hhs. >> reporter: health and hult services secretary kathleen sebelius was quick to recite some numbers in an exclusive interview with cnn' sanjay gupta. >> we've had 19 million people visit the web site, 500,000 accounts created an people are shopping every day. so people are signing up. >> reporter: but creating an account is not the same as signing up. >> how many people have signed up? >> we'll be doing what we've done with every other program, medicare part d, we've done it with chip. we will give monthly enrollment figures. we've said that since the beginning. >> reporter: republicans are seizing on the secrecy. >> we still don't know these