"A headline this week in The Hill shocked me: "ObamaCare enrollment strong in third week of sign-ups." The Hill is a serious, well-respected, non-partisan news
source. But any reader taking this headline at face value would be
seriously misled about what is really going on with Obamacare
enrollments during this fifth open enrollment season.
The Hill's reporter correctly notes that "the pace of sign-ups has
exceeded last year: In the first 26 days of last year's open enrollment
period, 2.1 million people signed up compared to the 2.3 million people
who signed up the first 18 days of this year's period."
Those figures imply that the daily rate of sign-ups this year is outpacing last year's rate by 58% [originally reported as 28%: Update #2]. Surely that is evidence of strong enrollment, no?
The reason it is not is buried at the tail-end of the story where the
reporter notes "the enrollment period ends Dec. 15, which is about half
as much time as people had to sign up last year."
Yipes! If enrollees have only half the time to sign up, then by pure arithmetic, the daily enrollment pace needs to be double
last year's in order for total enrollment at the end of the enrollment
period to match the level reach at the end of last year's enrollment
period: 12,216,003.
But if current enrollment is 158% [originally reported as 128%: Update #2] of
last year's when it needs to be 200%, a more accurate way to frame this
year's performance would be to say that Obamacare is on track to sign
up 21% [originally reported as 36%: Update #2] fewer enrollees than last year (i.e., 158/200=79% which would mean signing up 21% fewer). [originally reported as 128/200=64% which would meaning signing up 36% fewer: Update #2]. That's a pretty bad news story rather far removed from the rosy picture painted by The Hill's headline." - No, Obamacare Enrollment Is Not Strong, Not By A Longshot, Forbes, 11/24/2017
Link to the entire article appears below:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2017/11/24/no-obamacare-enrollment-is-not-strong-not-by-a-longshot/#439262b4919d
“In 2014, after accounting for attrition after the end of the first open-enrollment period (March 31, 2014), 6.7 million individuals had enrolled by December 31. In 2015, 2.6 million additional individuals enrolled (and remained on their plans), raising the total to 9.3 million people enrolled on December 31. If similar trends hold, total enrollment on the ACA exchanges will hit 10 million on December 31, 2016.
Overall, ACA-exchange enrollment has been lower than expected; in 2016, the gap between actual and forecasted enrollment is likely to widen further. For instance, in 2014, the ACA exchanges’ first year, enrollment (6.7 million) exceeded the CBO’s February 2014 forecast (6 million). But in 2015, total enrollment (9.3 million) lagged behind the CBO’s March 2015 forecast (11 million). And if current trends hold, total enrollment in 2016 (about 10 million) will be dramatically less than the CBO’s March 2015 forecast (21 million).
Are these lower-than-anticipated ACA-exchange enrollment figures the result of uninsured individuals securing coverage by other means — such as by enrolling in employer-sponsored coverage or Medicaid? Start with the former. As the Department of Health and Human Services has noted, in a growing economy, employer-sponsored coverage typically rises as more people acquire jobs. Instead, from the fourth quarter of 2013 to the fourth quarter of 2015, employer-sponsored coverage in the U.S. declined.
Or take Medicaid. Enrollment in this government-insurance program for the poor expanded during the aforementioned period; but such expansion largely matched the CBO forecast — and, therefore, was also incorporated into the CBO forecast for ACA-exchange enrollment. Indeed, if the ACA exchanges’ meager enrollment numbers were caused by a rise in coverage obtained elsewhere, America’s overall uninsured rate would have declined in 2015. Instead, it barely budged, hovering around 11.9 percent.” - Why Obamacare Is Failing at "Universal Coverage", foundation for economic education, 04/17/2016
Link to the entire essay appears below:
https://fee.org/articles/why-obamacare-is-failing-at-universal-coverage/
"Obamacare enrollment is lagging far behind what economists had projected, the Congressional Budget Office said in a new report that cuts the total number of customers expected to buy plans on the exchanges from 21 million down to just 13 million this year.
Of those, 11 million will be getting government subsidies — down from the 15 million the CBO had projected just a year ago.
The updated projections came as part of the CBO’s 2016 budget outlook, and confirm the administration’s own dim estimates of how many people would take advantage of the health exchanges, which are at the heart of President Obama’s health law." - Obamacare enrollment projections down nearly 40 percent,
washingtontimes.com, 01/25/2015
Link to the entire article appears below:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jan/25/obamacare-enrollment-projections-down-43-percent/
‘Last week, the White House took to Twitter for purposes of publicizing its latest Obamacare enrollment blarney. Far more informative than the tweet’s fictitious sign-up numbers was the schmaltzy video to which it was linked. Staged in the Oval Office, this one-act farce features a simpering HHS Secretary briefing our Thespian in Chief, who then delivers the following soliloquy: “The Affordable Care Act is working. It’s working better than we anticipated. It’s certainly working a lot better than many of the critics talked about early on.” In Obama’s 27-word script, “working” appears three times. The President doth protest too much, methinks.”
But don’t take my word for it. Ask the folks who learned last Friday that Obama’s bureaucrats sent them erroneous tax information relating to PPACA. The Associated Press reports, “Officials said the government sent the wrong tax information to about 800,000 HealthCare.gov customers, and they’re asking those affected to delay filing their 2014 returns.” And, as with most government blunders, the price will be paid by those who can least afford it. Robert Pear points out in the New York Times, “[T]housands of lower-income Americans who qualified for subsidized insurance had hoped for tax refunds and now must wait for weeks to file their taxes.”
Obama and his minions will, of course, rewrite PPACA’s tax and enrollment provisions in yet another attempt to contain the political damage wrought by the disastrous “reform” law. This is nothing new. It will merely be the latest of nearly 50 emergency revisions to which Obamacare has been subjected since it was signed into law. Prior to February’s pratfalls, according to a tally kept by the Galen Institute, “47 significant changes already have been made to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act: at least 28 that President Obama has made unilaterally, 17 that Congress has passed and the president has signed, and 2 by the Supreme Court.”’ - No, Mr. President, Obamacare Isn’t Working, The American Spectator, 02/23/2015
Link to the article appears below:
http://spectator.org/articles/61855/no-mr-president-obamacare-isn%E2%80%99t-working
“WASHINGTON—Millions fewer people will enroll in private health plans under the Affordable Care Act next year than the Congressional Budget Office had predicted, the Obama administration said Monday.
The developments are the latest sign that the law, which Democrats passed in 2010 to provide near-universal health insurance, is struggling to reach that goal quickly. Attracting new enrollees to the health law’s insurance exchanges has proven more difficult than advocates had predicted, and a slice of those who do sign up for plans haven’t kept up with premiums.
Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell said the administration was aiming for 9.1 million paid-up enrollees by the end of 2015, though the range could extend to 9.9 million, according to a new analysis conducted by her agency.
The exchanges, which reopen Saturday for the law’s second year of insurance enrollment, were expected to have 13 million people enrolled in private health plans under the law in 2015, according to an April 2014 projection by the nonpartisan CBO.
Around 7.1 million Americans currently have private coverage through the law’s exchanges, the administration said Monday. That is down from the 8 million the administration said had picked plans as of this spring, and from a figure of 7.3 million paid-up enrollees in mid-August.”
“Mike Perry, a pollster who conducts research for supporters of the law, said recent focus groups with people who were uninsured after the first year of sign-ups made clear they were a “harder group to reach” now. “They know their budget, and their budget has no room,” he said.”
“HHS officials also released new figures on their efforts to clear up data problems from the first sign-up period. They said they had cut off tax credits for December for 120,000 households that hadn’t responded to requests for more information about their income.
Another 112,000 people have had their coverage terminated because the federal government couldn’t confirm they were legally residing in the U.S., they said. That number is down slightly from an earlier announcement that the government was cutting off 116,000 people over immigration and citizenship status issues.” - Health-Law Enrollment in 2015 Won’t Meet Forecast, WSJ, 11/11/2014
Link to the entire article appears below:
http://online.wsj.com/articles/health-law-enrollment-in-2015-wont-meet-forecast-1415666606?KEYWORDS=health+law
Math Quest!
‘President Barack Obama said Thursday that eight million people had picked health-insurance plans through the Affordable Care Act, a number that significantly outstripped initial projections and emboldened him to step up criticism of Republicans seeking to repeal the law.
The president, in a surprise Thursday afternoon appearance in the White House briefing room, employed markedly more aggressive rhetoric in defending his signature legislative achievement, language that should help bolster Democratic candidates who have been on the defense.
The eight million sign-ups go beyond earlier projections by the Congressional Budget Office that six or seven million people would enroll through the exchanges in 2014. Mr. Obama pointed to the number to declare the law a success and that Republicans should stop trying to overturn it.
"The point is, the repeal debate is and should be over," the president said. "The Affordable Care Act is working and I know the American people don't want us spending the next 2½ years refighting the settled political battles of the last five years."
Some 35% of those who signed up through the federal health-insurance exchange were in the coveted under-35 demographic, Mr. Obama said. The participation of younger, relatively healthy people is needed to balance out the cost of medical claims from older and sicker ones.
The announcement contained few other new details about enrollment. Republicans quickly pointed to missing information—such as the number of people who had actually gained coverage after being uninsured, as opposed to those replacing an existing policy—to suggest the figures could be overblown as a measure of success.’
‘GOP lawmakers continued to emphasize information not contained in the numbers, including how many people have paid their first month's premium, the final step in enrolling for insurance.
"How many of those who have signed up were among the millions who had their plans canceled? How many were already insured but forced to sign up for an Obamacare plan?" said Sen. Lamar Alexander (R., Tenn.). "This law promised to insure the uninsured, let those who liked their insurance keep it, and lower the cost of insurance—let's talk about what the law was supposed to do instead of how many millions of people the president has so far forced into Obamacare."‘
‘The president's announcement didn't include state-by-state information about enrollment, which will be key to determining premiums for 2015 and beyond since each state's insurance market is different and rates are based on the makeup of people who sign up within each.
White House officials said Thursday that 28% of the enrollees in the federally run exchanges serving 36 states are in the 18-34 demographic. Some 7% are children covered by family plans. The administration didn't release demographic information for the 14 states running their own exchanges.
Insurance officials previously said 80% to 85% of enrollees paid the first month's premium, a proportion that would suggest the administration will ultimately hit enrollment targets for the exchanges for 2014 even if some people drop out or have picked more than one plan and are overrepresented in the numbers, especially since some people who have a change in their life circumstances such as a divorce or job loss are still allowed to sign up after March 31.
The figures represent a slight increase in young people compared with the previous five months. The administration said earlier that through Feb. 28, about 4.2 million people were covered by plans picked via the federal and state-run exchanges. Of those, 25% were 18 to 34, and 6% were children covered by family plans.
The mix of younger people buying coverage is considered by health plans to be crucial in determining future insurance prices. Under the law, insurers no longer can charge premiums based on health histories, and are restricted in how much more they can charge older consumers.’ (1)
Those Pesky Math Problems
‘You can't manage what you don't measure, as the great Peter Drucker used to say, and for the White House that seems to be the goal. Out of the blue, the Census Bureau has changed how it counts health insurance—at the precise moment when ObamaCare is roiling the insurance markets.
Since 1987, the Current Population Survey, or CPS, has collected information on the health-insurance coverage status of Americans. The annual reports are widely cited because their large sample sizes improve accuracy, the data are gathered constantly, and they tease out state-by-state details. But this year the Census revamped the CPS household insurance questions, muddying comparisons between the pre- and post-ObamaCare numbers. The results of the new method will be disclosed this fall.
The FDA would never approve a new drug whose maker completely changed the clinical trial protocol in the middle of the experiment, yet that is what the White House has done. How many people gained or lost insurance under ObamaCare? Did government crowd out individual insurance? What about employer-sponsored insurance? It will be much harder and in some cases impossible to know.
Robert Pear of the New York Times obtained internal Census documents that note that the new CPS system produces lower estimates of the uninsured as an artifact of how the questionnaire is structured. One memo refers to the "coincidental and unfortunate timing" and that, "Ideally, the redesign would have had at least a few years to gather base line and trend data."‘ (2)
Those Pesky Math Problems Part Deux
‘The White House and its media phalanx are claiming the Census Bureau fracas is nothing more than a search for a conspiracy where none exists. Yet revising its health insurance survey design will make it harder to measure ObamaCare's performance over time, and now we've learned that the choice to do so is even worse than we first wrote.
The White House is right that the new questions have been in the works since the Bush Administration, and the Current Population Survey (CPS) revisions are said to produce better estimates of how many people lack coverage. The problem is that resetting the insurance CPS in this year of major insurance disruption means that the old data series can't be compared to the new one going forward. It's a statistical break that prevents researchers from identifying before-and-after trends with precision and validity.
It would have been less disruptive to either delay the update or else to run the old and new CPS in parallel for a few years. As we wrote Wednesday, the second option would preserve the value of three decades of old information, while still producing more accurate statistics going forward.
We've since learned that this hybrid method is precisely what the Census Bureau proposed to do for its data collection about income and poverty in the Annual Social and Economic Supplement, or ASEC. Census announced this change at the same time it proposed the new health insurance questions in the Federal Register in September 2013.
Let the Census explain: "The ASEC 2014 data collection instrument will have a split-design structure, with two separate treatments for the income-related section. . . . Five-eighths (5/8) of the sample will have income questions from the 'traditional' design, while three-eighths (3/8) will have income questions from the 'redesigned' ASEC. This split-design will enable Census Bureau analysts to create a 'cross-walk' when analyzing the effects of the redesigned ASEC on income and poverty estimates."
So why not follow the same procedure for asking about health insurance, erring on the side of more information, not less? The new questions were road-tested in previous surveys in 2010 and 2013, though the CPS is viewed as reliable because it has produced a stable baseline for comparison for so long. Other surveys of insurance, both public and private like Gallup, are more volatile.’ (3)
Checking The Long Form Division
‘Barack Obama wasted little time last week declaring victory as the deadline for enrollment in Affordable Care Act exchanges expired – well, more or less, anyway. The White House celebrated as it announced that 7.1 million consumers had signed up for health insurance through the federal and state exchanges, slightly exceeding their original goals and significantly outpacing expectations after the disastrous rollout of Obamacare last October. “The debate over repealing this law is over,” President Obama told the press on April 1. “The Affordable Care Act is here to stay.”
Last week, that sounded like wishful thinking. Two new studies released this week prove it.
Before we get to these studies, though, we should recognize why we need outside organizations to validate White House claims in the first place. The Department of Health and Human Services still has no way to quantify important data about those consumers signing up for health insurance through state and federal exchanges.
More than six months after the initial rollout of Obamacare -- and four years after the ACA’s passage -- the systems designed by HHS still cannot determine basic and critical information about enrollments such as whether a premium payment has been made. Without a premium payment, a sign-up in the web portal does not mean coverage has been extended.
Furthermore, the systems were not designed to collect important demographic information such as pre-existing coverage, current health status, or even definite age ranges, even though the success of the Obamacare structure depends on getting previously uninsured healthy Americans locked into expensive comprehensive insurance.
Without the “young invincibles” providing new funding for risk pools that now have to cover older and less-healthy consumers under “community pricing” restrictions, premiums will escalate rapidly, forcing more consumers out of the system and triggering the dreaded “death spiral” for insurers.
In order to determine the scope of the celebration, then, we need outside surveys to give us an idea of the size and composition of the actual enrollment population in Obamacare. The first of the independent studies comes from the RAND Corporation, which studied the changes in the health insurance market between September 2013 – just before the rollout of the state exchanges – and the end of the open-enrollment period at the end of last month.
While the White House can claim credit for a net increase of 9.3 million insured and a lowered uninsured rate from 20.5 percent to 15.8 percent, the data provides a significantly different picture than that painted by President Obama and the ACA’s advocates.
First, a significant amount of this increase comes from Medicaid enrollments, not private insurance. Almost six million people enrolled in Medicaid, and earlier studies showed that a relatively small number of those came from the expansion built into the ACA; most of these would have been Medicaid-eligible prior to the reform.
Another 8.2 million more people enrolled in employer-provided health care, as 7.1 million left the “other” category and another 1.6 million left the individual insurance markets. Only 3.9 million actually enrolled in insurance plans through state or federal exchanges – not 7.1 million as claimed by Obama. That number falls far short of even the lowered expectations issued by HHS and the White House earlier this year.’ (4)
McMath?
‘Today President Obama announced that as of April 15, 8 million people have enrolled in the insurance exchanges set up by Obamacare. But that’s not all. According to a White House fact sheet:
3 million young adults stayed on their parents plan,
3 million more people had enrolled in Medicaid, with more on the way, and
5 million people enrolled in plans outside the insurance exchanges.
The news was so good that even Republicans should, in the president’s words, admit that the Affordable Care Act is working.
Maybe not. What the administration has not told us is how many of those 19 million people already had coverage and lost it because of the Affordable Care Act. Or how many of them would have been covered by insurance this year and changed plans to get a big subsidy. Or how many of them thought they were going to get a better health plan but found out that their doctor is not in the network. Or how many of them spent more on insurance than they felt they could afford because there were no lower-cost alternatives. Or how many will find out that the taxpayer subsidy they are receiving will turn out to be too high—they might get a raise in a few months or work some overtime and will make a little too much money this year, or it might just be that the government’s computers didn’t get it right—and will have to repay the Treasury hundreds and perhaps thousands of dollars?’ (5)
Notes:
(1) Obama Says Health-Insurance Enrollees Reach 8 Million, President Criticizes GOP, Saying 'Repeal Debate Is and Should Be Over' - WSJ, 04/17/2014
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304810904579507922881089460?KEYWORDS=OBAMA+HEALTH+CARE+TALK&mg=reno64-wsj
(2) Cooking the ObamaCare Stats, Suddenly, the Census Bureau changes how it counts insurance - WSJ, 04/16/2014
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303663604579503652766287652?KEYWORDS=obamacare&mg=reno64-wsj
(3) None Dare Blame ObamaCare, The Census Bureau's statistical changes are worse than we thought - WSJ, 04/17/2014
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303626804579507820306300440?KEYWORDS=obamacare&mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702303626804579507820306300440.html%3FKEYWORDS%3Dobamacare&cb=logged0.8406738588705886
(4) Two New Studies Raise Red Flags on Obamacare, The Fiscal Times, 04/10/2014
http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Columns/2014/04/10/Two-Studies-Raise-Red-Flags-Obamacare-s-First-Round
(5) Lots of sign-ups for Obamacare — and almost as many questions, American Enterprise Institute, 04/17/2014
http://www.aei-ideas.org/2014/04/lots-of-sign-ups-for-obamacare-and-almost-as-many-questions/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+aei-ideas%2Fposts+%28AEIdeas+Posts%29
‘Late summer before the federal health exchanges launched, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said the Obama administration had a goal of getting 7 million people fully enrolled in Obamacare by March 2014.
"I think success looks like at least 7 million people having signed up by the end of March 2014,"Sebelius said during an interview with NBC News.
The White House has been slowly backing away from that number as health exchanges around the country continue to fail and as few people show interest in the program. Now, Vice President Joe Biden is admitting the White House probably won't be meeting its goal of 7 million people enrolled by March.’
‘"We may not get to seven million, we may get to five or six, but that's a hell of a start," Biden said, according to a pool report of his meeting.
The Obama administration said last week that 3.3 million people have enrolled in private Obamacare health plans between October 1 and Feb 1.’
‘Keep in mind the definition of enrolled is a broad one. The federal government counts people putting Obamacare plans in their online shopping carts as "enrolled" before they pay for the plan or check out.’ - Biden: That 7 Million Obamacare Enrollee Goal is Probably Not Going to Happen, townhall.com, 02/20/2014 and Biden: 'We may not get to 7 million' by Obamacare deadline, Reuters, 02/19/2014
Link to the complete articles appear below:
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2014/02/20/biden-that-7-million-obamacare-enrollee-goal-is-probably-not-going-to-happen-n1797884?utm_source=thdailypm&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl_pm
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/20/us-usa-healthcare-biden-idUSBREA1J02N20140220
“With less than seven weeks of open enrollment to go, ObamaCare enrollment — and payments — have slowed to a near-crawl in some states.
Minnesota's exchange enrollment goal of 67,000 seemed within reach on Jan. 4, when signups stood at 25,860.
But after surging by more than 4,000 per week in the prior five weeks, signups collapsed back to November's pace of less than 700 per week.
As of Feb. 1, Nevada had just 14,999 paid enrollees — vs. the state's March 31 goal of 115,000.
Washington state, meanwhile, was slightly more than halfway to its goal of 340,000 signups — but only 88,071 had paid as of Feb. 1.
The January data available from a handful of states raise new doubts about whether ObamaCare's downgraded first-year prospects are still too optimistic.
Further, a spotty payment rate (50% in Washington and 66% in Nevada) creates a risk that the demographics of the paid exchange population may be older — and possibly sicker — than even the national signup data have signaled.”
“No state has provided as much detail about its enrollment through Feb. 1 as Minnesota, and the details are somewhat concerning. (The state counts people who have completed their application and chosen a payment method.)
Only 21% of signups were in the key 18-34 demographic vs. 35% ages 55 to 64. Minnesota officials have been taken by surprise at the share of people signing up for ObamaCare's richest "platinum" coverage, which reimburses 90% of the covered group's qualifying expenses.
Fully 29% have signed up for low-deductible platinum policies — compared to a projection of 5%. Such policies would tend to be favored by people who want to guard against high medical expenses, while someone expecting minimal costs might go for a high-deductible bronze plan.” - ObamaCare Enrollment Slows To Crawl, State Data Show, investors.com, 02/10/2014
Link to the entire article appears below:
http://news.investors.com/politics-obamacare/021014-689516-obamacare-enrollment-signups-stagnate-lag-2014-targets.htm
‘Don't believe President Barack Obama's claim that 6 million people have signed up for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, warns Glenn Kessler, author of the influential Fact Checker blog in The Washington Post.
Kessler told "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV that the figure is based on combining a figure of 2.1 million for people who have selected plans on state and federal exchanges, and 3.9 million for Medicaid.’
‘"[It's] somewhat similar to saying you put something in your shopping cart at Amazon and that's what they're counting, all of the things that are in the shopping cart. They don't know how many people actually pushed the button and ordered the item."‘ - WashPo's Fact Checker: Don't Believe 6M People Signed Up for Obamacare, newsmax.com, 01/17/2014
Link to the entire article appears below:
http://www.newsmax.com/NewsmaxTv/obamacare-fact-checker-wrong-numbers/2014/01/17/id/547782?ns_mail_uid=11826812&ns_mail_job=1553651_01182014&promo_code=16447-1
"The other challenge now is getting people to pay for coverage. I was surprised today calling around to people to find only about 50 percent have paid. That’s not a reason to panic yet. The due dates for payment have been sliding all around, so people can be confused. But it can be a mess. Some insurers are doing autocalls like politicians do the night before the election asking people to pay."- A health industry expert on ‘the fundamental problem with Obamacare', Washingtonpost.com, 01/09/2014
Link to the entire article appears below:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/01/09/a-health-industry-expert-on-the-fundamental-problem-with-obamacare/
“How anxious is the Obama administration about the health care law’s effects on insurance coverage? For the last few days, speculation has increased about the possibility that the law could actually result in a net loss of coverage at the beginning of next year—with more people losing existing insurance as a result of cancellations than have signed up for new insurance plans under the law. An announcement this afternoon strongly suggests that the administration is more than a little bit concerned about this possibility as well.
The Department of Health and Human Services said this afternoon that it will extend coverage options for individuals currently enrolled in the law’s temporary high-risk pool program through the end of January, instead of allowing the program to end on December 31 as originally planned. It will also require private insurers selling policies in the law's insurance exchanges to accept payment up until December 31 of this year for coverage than begins January 1.
In addition, HHS said it would “strongly encourage” insurers to take other "transitional" steps over the next month as well—steps like accepting partial pre-payment for coverage that begins on January 1 as a “down payment” in lieu of full payment prior to the start of coverage and allowing people who sign up after the December 23 deadline to begin coverage on January 1. HHS also said it hoped insurers would accept out of network providers as in-network for “acute episodes” or in cases in which a provider was listed in an insurer’s enrollment directory but dropped out after an individual’s enrollment date.
On an afternoon conference call about the changes, the administration even suggested that insurers should consider accepting as enrolled anyone who has signed up for a plan by December 23—even if the person in question has not paid the first month’s premium at all. Payments could be made after January 1, and after coverage kicked in.” - White House In Obamacare Panic Mode? Administration Announces Steps to Maintain Insurance Coverage As Worries About Disruptions Mount, reason.com, 12/12/2013
Link to entire article appears below:
http://reason.com/blog/2013/12/12/white-house-in-obamacare-panic-mode-admi
Update: Trainwreck: White House Issues More Frantic Obamacare Deadline Extensions, townhall.com, 12/13/2013
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2013/12/13/industry-expert-no-healthcaregov-isnt-fixed-n1762127?utm_source=thdailypm&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl_pm
'The website launched on a Tuesday. Publicly, the government said there were 4.7 million unique visits in the first 24 hours. But at a meeting Wednesday morning, the war room notes say "six enrollments have occurred so far."‘
They were with BlueCross BlueShield North Carolina and Kansas City, CareSource and Healthcare Service Corporation.
By Wednesday afternoon, enrollments were up to "approximately 100." By the end of Wednesday, the notes reflect "248 enrollments" nationwide.’
‘The notes leave no doubt that some enrollment figures, which the administration has chosen to keep secret, are available.
"Statistics coming in," said notes from the very first meeting the morning of Oct. 2. Contractor "QSSI has a daily dashboard created every night."
But head of CMS Marilyn Tavenner would not disclose any figures when Rep. Dave Camp, chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, asked earlier this week.
"Chairman Camp, we will have those numbers available in mid-November," she said.’ - Obamacare enrollments got off to very slow start, documents show, CBS, 10/31/2013
Link to the entire article appears below:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-57610328/obamacare-enrollments-got-off-to-very-slow-start-documents-show/
Updated 11/02/2013
“The Republican-led House Ways and Means Committee on Friday threatened to subpoena the Obama administration in an effort to obtain enrollment numbers for the new health care exchanges amid reports only six people signed up for ObamaCare on its first day.
Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich., the committee's chairman, told Medicare chief Marilyn Tavenner, the senior Obama administration official closest to the problem-plagued rollout of the health law, requesting that enrollment figures be released immediately.
"We are facing a crisis," Camp wrote. "The failed launch of the exchanges combined with the millions of cancellation notices is putting Americans health care coverage at risk. By all media accounts, enrollment in the exchanges is thus far significantly behind the administration's projections."
Camp cited media reports indicating the administration has direct access to daily enrollment figures. Raising questions about the administration's transparency on the rollout, Tavenner declined to provide the committee with signup numbers at a hearing this week.
The Obama administration has thus far not released any official numbers on ObamaCare enrollment, saying the first numbers would be released in mid-November after the Department of Health and Human Services collects data from a variety of different sources.
"The committee is not prepared to wait until 'around mid-November' for the administration's scrubbed and spun numbers," Camp wrote. "Enrollment data exists today that will help this committee begin to address the implications of the failed launch." - House committee threatens subpoena over ObamaCare enrollment numbers, Fox news, 11/02/2013
Link to entire article appears below:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/11/02/gop-threatens-subpoena-over-obamacare-enrollment-numbers/
