If you tell a lie enough times it becomes the truth. President Obama and Hillary and Bill Clinton keep telling the American public that there are 20 million new Obamacare enrollees.
Obamacare advocates believe that Obamacare provided healthcare insurance for 20 million people who did not have healthcare insurance before Obamacare.
These Obamacare advocates have little understanding of the details of this lie. They usually react negatively when I tell them the 20 million new enrollee figure is a lie.
Republicans do not pick this up and call Democrats out about this lie. Perhaps they have no understanding of what is going on.
The lie then becomes the truth.
I follow Charles Gabbe at http://acasignups.net. Charles Gabbe is pro Obamacare. He publishes daily and weekly statistics as well as news in general about Obamacare’s progress and enrollment.
His numbers come from government sources. His numbers are very different than the numbers President Obama, Hillary and Bill Clinton are announcing.
The Obama administration continually manipulates the enrollment figures in order to give the impression that Obamacare has been successful.
President Obama continuously lies about the enrollment figures.
Obamacare has been a total failure because of its structure.
On December 9, 2015 ACAsignups.net published these enrollment numbers for 2016.
Confirmed 2016 Exchange QHPs: 3,260,356 as of 12/09/15
Estimated 2016 Exchange QHPs: 4.73M as of 12/09/15 (3.60M via HCgov)
Projected Exchange QHPs: 5.76M by 12/12/15 (4.34M via HC.Gov)
Projected #OE3 QHP Selections: 14.70M nationally (11.23M via HC.gov)
Projected #OE3 QHP Selections by State
Maybe 9 million signed up for Obamacare last year. (2015)
What were the 12/09/14 enrollee numbers with 3 weeks to go until January 1, 2015?
Christmas to New Years consumes one week of enrollment. Holiday shopping will consume the other two weeks.
Why did the government reduce the expected enrollment to 5 million when enrollment was 9 million last year (2016)?
Does the Obama administration expect 4 million people to drop out of Obamacare because it is too expensive?
How did the Obama administration’s data given to the CBO cause the CBO to predict an enrollment of 21 million enrollees for 2016?
The 2016 Obamacare enrollment figures barely touch 10 million, not 20 million.
What is enrollment going to be when most of the major insurance companies have dropped out of the health insurance exchanges?
What is enrollment going to be when 18 of the 22 Obama administration created State Co-Ops have gone bankrupt?
President Obama and his administration have mislead Americans about the exact number of enrollees since the very beginning of the first enrollment period starting October 1, 2013. The first enrollment was delayed until November 1, 2013 and extended 6 months.
The American public has been mislead about:
- The disastrous website development, reason for website crashes and cost of website development.
- The exact number of enrollees the first year. (9.5 million corrected to 8 million and then re-corrected to 6.8 million)
- An additional correction that resulted in another decrease of an additional 800,000 enrollees losing Obamacare insurance. The government belatedly discovered these 800,000 were ineligible for subsidies.
- Decreasing the original predicted enrollees for 2015 from 13.5 million to 9.5 million.
- The change in the start of enrollment from October 1, 2014 to November 15th to avoid discussion of enrollment around the time of the November 2014 elections.
- Extending the 2014 enrollment 6 months.
- Extending enrollment for 2015 for one to three months.
- Finally, in 2015 announcing the back end of the website’s ability to send information to the IRS was still not complete.
- Rehiring CGI, the same Canadian company that built the disastrous healthcare.gov, to fix the back end of the website. A company’s employee is a friend of Michelle Obama.
- Discovering that 1.2 million enrollees were counted that should not have been because they got dental insurance instead of healthcare insurance bringing the number of enrollees down from a recalculated 8 million to 6.8 million enrollees for 2014.
- Announcing that 11.5 million people have enrolled for 2015 (these numbers seemed shaking at the time of enrollment. It seemed to be closer to 9.5 million or less.)
- Announcing that the group market Obamacare insurance enrollment is being delayed a year or two while the mandate penalty for employers was to start January 1,2015.
Along the way I got the feeling that none of the enrollment numbers could be trusted. HHS and CMS kept modifying and lowering them.
The Obama administration keeps telling American how great the enrollment is and that Obamacare is a success.
However, we are told only ten million enrollees had Obamacare insurance in 2016.
Eighty five percent of those on Obamacare are receiving subsidies so the premiums are affordable. These subsidized recipients still cannot afford the deductibles.
The remaining 15% enrollees have a pre-existing illness. They cannot find private insurance to buy.
What about the 330 million people who might have subpar healthcare insurance? How many employers might discontinue employee insurance?
After five years with all the new Obamacare taxes, I would not call Obamacare a successful healthcare reform program.
All of these enrollees are in the individual insurance market. These numbers do not include the group insurance market.
14 million people in the individual market lost their healthcare insurance pre Obamacare.
10 million gained insurance on the healthcare insurance exchanges in 2016. There is a net decrease of 4 million individuals that is not discussed by the Obama administration or the traditional mass media.
Many of the state healthcare insurance exchanges have failed.
Eighteen of the 22 state insurance co-ops have failed so far.
An unknown number of enrollees in 2014 did not re-enroll in 2015 because of the loss of the subsidy.
Other enrollees did not sign up again because they could not afford the high deductible.
At the end of 2015 enrollment the Obama administration announced that 11.5 million people were enrolled.
On March 16, 2015 the administration said about 16.4 million people have gained health insurance coverage since the Affordable Care Act became law nearly five years ago.
Please notice the tricky wording. The Obama administration is counting children under 26 that now can be included in their parents’ group insurance plans and the additional Medicaid recipients added by some states.
The count is not only the people who enrolled in Obamacare through the healthcare insurance exchanges.
The discussion should be about the success of the healthcare insurance exchanges not the increase in Medicaid coverage.
The 2014 enrollment figures as of March 18, 2015 were also inflated. It is noteworthy than the Medicaid/CHIP estimate was 14.1 M. It is down to 10 million in 2016.
Confirmed Exchange QHPs: 11,699,473 as of 3/18/15
Estimated: 11.95M (9.06M via HCgov) as of 3/18/15
Estimated ACA Policy Enrollment: 33.1M (10.46M Exchange QHPs, 8.20M OFF-Exchange QHPs, 330K SHOP, 14.1M Medicaid/CHIP)
Written into the law is that only state healthcare exchanges can provide subsidies not the federal health exchanges.
President Obama has not asked congress to rewrite the law’s provision.
This was another example of executive overreach of power by President Obama.
It looks as if President Obama cannot help himself from trying to manipulate the American public.
Republicans have not pointed out all this manipulation to the voting public.
I believe the public has figured out the manipulation.
Hillary Clinton has promised she will expand Obamacare. Why expand a failed program?
Her unspoken goal is to institute a single party payer system. A single party payer system will also be unsustainable.
There is a better way!
It is a consumer driven healthcare system with my ideal medical saving account.
The opinions expressed in the blog “Repairing The Healthcare System” are, mine and mine alone.
All Rights Reserved © 2006 – 2016 “Repairing The Healthcare System” Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE
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