There are so many lies spewing from Washington about Obamacare, that it may be a good idea for me to just have a daily feature called "Today's Obamacare Lies." It is amazing to watch the false statements sail by as they are lobbed by Team Obama out into America. Today's entry in the Obamacare Lie Hall of Fame comes from Michael Hash, who directs the Office of Health Reform at the Department of Health and Human Services. Hash issued the report this morning detailing the numbers of people who have selected insurance on the exchanges during the months of October and November. The report says that through the end of November, 137,000 people had selected insurance policies on the federal website and another 227,000 had done the same on the exchanges run by individual states. Because these numbers are so low, the feds gave numbers for two months rather than just for November. Nevertheless, on the federal site, the November numbers are around 100,000 and on the state sites the figure is around 125,000.
So where's the lie? Here: Mr. Hash announced that the administration is "on track" to meet its target of signing up 7 million insurance customers by the end of March, when the enrollment period ends. It is a blatant lie. Think about it. To get to 7 million during the five and a half month period (the last two weeks of March will be too late to complete the sign up procedures), the Obamacrats would have to sell policies to about 1,300,000 people each month. During the first two months, they have not even reached one eighth of the necessary numbers. But it gets worse. The figures that the government releases are the numbers of people who have selected insurance policies, not the number who have actually purchased insurance. We do not know what percentage of those who selected insurance never went on to make the purchase. Further, we also know that before the purchase can be effective, the buyer has to make the first payment. According to reports in the media, about one third of all those who selected insurance plans had erroneous information sent on to the insurance companies which would prevent them from receiving a bill and buying the policies. Most likely, of the 137,000 that the Obamacrats claim selected insurance on the federal site, less than half have actually bought insurance. With numbers like those, it means that during the first two months of the sign up period, Obamacare has only sold something like 5% of the target about which Mr. Hash is talking.
But wait, it gets worse. The goal of Obamacare is not to sign up 7 million people for insurance on the site. The goal actually is to sign up 7 million new people to insurance. We know that over 6 million people have had their policies cancelled due to Obamacare and that those folks were sent to the exchanges to buy new coverage. That means that a big chunk of the people who have already selected policies are actually people who are replacing current insurance rather than people who are newly getting insurance. While the figures have not been released by the feds to let us calculate the precise breakdown, the most likely effect is to cut by about half the number of policies sold to the newly insured. That would take the first two months down to hitting like 2-3% of the goal.
If you put this all together, you realize that when Mr. Hash says that the Obama administration is on track to meet its target by the end of March, it is the equivalent of the captain of the Titanic saying that his ship was on target to getting to New York on time after it hit the iceberg, but before it finally sank.
So where's the lie? Here: Mr. Hash announced that the administration is "on track" to meet its target of signing up 7 million insurance customers by the end of March, when the enrollment period ends. It is a blatant lie. Think about it. To get to 7 million during the five and a half month period (the last two weeks of March will be too late to complete the sign up procedures), the Obamacrats would have to sell policies to about 1,300,000 people each month. During the first two months, they have not even reached one eighth of the necessary numbers. But it gets worse. The figures that the government releases are the numbers of people who have selected insurance policies, not the number who have actually purchased insurance. We do not know what percentage of those who selected insurance never went on to make the purchase. Further, we also know that before the purchase can be effective, the buyer has to make the first payment. According to reports in the media, about one third of all those who selected insurance plans had erroneous information sent on to the insurance companies which would prevent them from receiving a bill and buying the policies. Most likely, of the 137,000 that the Obamacrats claim selected insurance on the federal site, less than half have actually bought insurance. With numbers like those, it means that during the first two months of the sign up period, Obamacare has only sold something like 5% of the target about which Mr. Hash is talking.
But wait, it gets worse. The goal of Obamacare is not to sign up 7 million people for insurance on the site. The goal actually is to sign up 7 million new people to insurance. We know that over 6 million people have had their policies cancelled due to Obamacare and that those folks were sent to the exchanges to buy new coverage. That means that a big chunk of the people who have already selected policies are actually people who are replacing current insurance rather than people who are newly getting insurance. While the figures have not been released by the feds to let us calculate the precise breakdown, the most likely effect is to cut by about half the number of policies sold to the newly insured. That would take the first two months down to hitting like 2-3% of the goal.
If you put this all together, you realize that when Mr. Hash says that the Obama administration is on track to meet its target by the end of March, it is the equivalent of the captain of the Titanic saying that his ship was on target to getting to New York on time after it hit the iceberg, but before it finally sank.
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