Nov. 12, 2013, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Nathan Mehrens today issued the following statement in response to a Washington Post report that the Obama administration is padding its Obamacare enrollment figures with those “who have a plan sitting in their online shopping cart but have not yet paid”:
“The amount of people actually signing up via Healthcare.gov must really be terrible if the Obama administration is already resorting to accounting gimmicks to boost its so-called ‘enrollment’ figures. Seven million people are supposed to sign up by March via the exchanges for 2014, 13 million by 2014, and 22 million by 2016 according to the Congressional Budget Office. If only 50,000 have signed up in the first month, as the Wall Street Journal reports, the administration will be lucky if it gets a million in the next year, far short of its target.
“The implications of this failure cannot be overstated. To the extent that the administration fails to enroll millions of uninsured in the exchanges, everyone’s models of how large the insurance pool ought to be will undoubtedly prove to be wrong. Which, because the minimum coverage requirements have increased so substantially under the law for existing plans, when the non-enrolled millions are not paying premiums into the system to offset the cost, it will mean everyone else will have to pay more.
“No amount of padding its numbers with false enrollees by the Obama administration will change the reality of higher premiums for everyone else. This really is going to be the unaffordable care act.”
Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at (703)383-0880 or at media@algnews.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts including ALG President Nathan Mehrens.
###