Carney: We just "don't have specific data" for how many people have paid their premiums

The Obama administration announced to much fanfare on Monday that ObamaCare enrollment has “surged” by 800,00 over just the past two weeks to take the program’s total enrollment to 5 million people. If that were true, it would be semi-encouraging news about the procrastinators the Obama administration was desperately counting on to give their costly risk pools the requisite number of participants — but as ever, they have rather conspicuously left out just a few itty bitty details from what could possibly be some very inflated numbers:

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QUESTION: You started out by saying 5 million people have enrolled. Is that the correct word, “enrolled,” since we still don’t know how many people have actually paid their premiums. Is it that 5 million signed up, will we get the information on who is actually enrolled and paid their premiums?

CARNEY: CMS is working to provide more detailed data on who had already paid their premiums, what percentage of the population of enrollees that includes. We can point you to major insurers who have placed that figure at 80 percent, give-or-take, depending on the insurer, but we don’t have specific data that is going to be in a reliable enough form to provide.

In the meantime, at least a couple of states have had made such a terrible showing with their online ObamaCare exchanges and their enrollment numbers, they’re pressing the Obama administration for exceptions to the inconveniently approaching March 31st enrollment deadline:

At least two states are requesting a longer Obamacare enrollment period–and they might get it. …

Nevada and Oregon hope to qualify for one of the health law’s special enrollment periods. Consumers in both states have faced technical issues in getting coverage: Oregonians still don’t have a functioning online exchange, and Nevadans are receiving error messages and hitting other site glitches reminiscent of HealthCare.gov‘s early days. …

State exchange officials have reached out to HHS to request permission to extend the enrollment period. Oregon exchange spokeswoman Ariane Holm said the state is seeking an extension through the end of April. Nevada is looking at up to 60 days, as permitted by law.

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Beege Welborn 5:00 PM | December 24, 2024
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