Thread: Drudge Report: APRIL FOOLS: 7 MILLION? Is the real Obamacare total just 858,000

Drudge Report

APRIL FOOLS: 7 MILLION?



Is the real Obamacare total just 858,000 -- not 7 million?
Signup figures approached 7 million as the Affordable Care Act's open enrollment period officially, sort of, almost, technically came to an end Monday night.
DAILY MAIL

'The debate over repealing this law is over': Obama boasts 7.1 MILLION have signed up to Obamacare - but study shows just 858,000 newly insured Americans have paid up!

• President took a major victory lap and took political shots at Republicans, but ignored shortcomings in his administration's official numbers
  
• Press secretary Jay Carney will only say 'we're aggregating a lot of data' when asked how many enrollees have paid for coverage
• Carney dodged questions about damning study that showed very few Obamacare customers were uninsured before the law took effect
• Percentages from a hush-hush RAND Corporation study suggest barely 858,000 previously uninsured Americans have enrolled and paid premiums
• HHS Secretary Sebelius met a televised challenge Monday about 'unpopular' Obamacare with lengthy awkward silence

By DAVID MARTOSKO, U.S. POLITICAL EDITOR
PUBLISHED: 10:21 EST, 1 April 2014 | UPDATED: 15:48 EST, 1 April 2014
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108 View comments

A triumphant President Barack Obama declared his signature medical insurance overhaul a success, saying it has made America's health care system 'a lot better.' But buried in the 7.1 million enrollments he announced in a heavily staged Rose Garden appearance is a more unsettling reality.

Numbers from a RAND Corporation study that has been kept under wraps suggest that barely 858,000 previously uninsured Americans – nowhere near 7.1 million – have paid for new policies and joined the ranks of the insured by Monday night.
Others were already insured, including millions who lost coverage when their existing policies were suddenly cancelled because they didn't meet Obamacare's strict minimum requirements.
Still, he claimed that 'millions of people who have health insurance would not have it' without his insurance law.'

The president took no questions, from reporters, but celebrated the end of a rocky six-month open-enrollment period by taking pot shots at Republicans who have opposed the law from the beginning as a government-run seizure of one-seventh of the U.S. economy.
'The debate over repealing this law is over,' he insisted. 'The Affordable Care Act is here to stay.'

SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO


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Barack Obama spoke about Affordable Care Act enrollment totals at the White House but took no questions, as Vice President Joe Biden stood by wordlessly and applauded


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an ebullient Jay Carney, fresh from greeting his hometown world-champion Boston Red Sox, bragged about the administration's signup totals -- but hid the ball on thorny questions that could unravel the celebration

The president also chided conservatives 'who have based their entire political agenda on repealing it,' and praised congressional Democrats for their partisan passage of the law without a single GOP vote.

'We could not have done it without them, and they should be proud of what they've done,' Obama boasted, in a clear nod to November's contentious elections in which Republicans are expected to make large gains on an anti-Obamacare platform because of the law's general lack of popularity.

White House press secretary Jay Carney stopped short of saying 'I told you so,' but chided a sparse press corps in the briefing room at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue for ever doubting that the Obamacare system would enroll more than 7 million Americans.
'At midnight last night we surpassed everyone's expectations,' he boasted, 'at least everyone in this room.'
While he took great pains to emphasize that the total would grow – saying 'we're still waiting on data from state exchanges' – he dodged tough questions about other statistics that reporters thought he should have had at the ready.

More...

• 'What the hell is this, a joke?' Boehner goes ballistic after latest Obamacare deadline extension -- the one the Obama administration promised two weeks ago would NEVER happen
• And it's down – AGAIN! Obamacare website crashes TWICE on enrollment deadline day
• Voter registration papers from California's Obamacare enrollment agency come with Democratic Party already checked off!
• ‘Guys, hot ladies are waiting to talk to you’: What deaf Obamacare customers were greeted with after being mistakenly directed to a sex chat number instead of insurance line

Those numbers included how many Americans have paid for their insurance policies, and are actually insured. Also, he had no answer to the thorny question of how few signups represented people who had no insurance before the Affordable Care Act took effect.
Aside from the issue of the numbers' likely decrease when non-paying enrollments are taken into account, administration officials have been coy about the RAND Corporation study, which suggests that relatively few Obamacare enrollees were previously uninsured.
'What I can tell you is that we expect there to be a good mix of people who were previously uninsured who now have insurance,' Carney said Monday.
'Certainly, there’s a significant number who now have qualified for Medicaid in those states that expanded Medicaid who will have insurance who didn’t have it before.'

In addition to his claim of 7.1 million enrollments, Obama also announced that 'three million young people' under age 26 have gained coverage as add-ons to their parents' policies. and 'millions more ... gained access throgh Medicaid expansion,' he said.

But the Affordable Care Act carried with it the promise of covering 'every American,' and it appears to have fallen tremendously short.


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Still growing: The 'final' enrollment day for Obamacare saw long lines and eleventh-hour panic, but the administration has rolled out a red carpet for latecomers who are willing to check a box and swear they tried to sign up on time

The unpublished RAND study – only the Los Angeles Times has seen it – found that just 23 per cent of new enrollees had no insurance before signing up.
And of those newly insured Americans, just 53 per cent have paid their first month's premiums.
If those numbers hold, the actual net gain of paid policies among Americans who lacked medical insurance in the pre-Obamacare days would be just 858,298.
Obama's Rose Garden speech included an acknowledgement that the Affordable Care Act 'has had its share of problems,' and has at times been 'contentious and confusing ... That's part of what change looks like in a Democracy.'
But 'there are still no death panels,' he joked amid laughter. 'Armagedon has not arrived.'
Carney and White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough distributed donuts to reporters in the press center on Tuesday morning – presumably without checking with the first lady – and eagerly pitched talking points to journalists writing about the milestone day.

But questions remain about the effectiveness and affordability of Obama's plan, which he sold to congressional Democrats and the American people as a scheme to cover the uninsured, and about how the law is contributing to the spiraling cost of medical care.


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'We're aggregating a lot of data,' Carney insisted, refusing to comment on how many Obamacare enrollments came complete with payments, and how few of the customers already had insurance before the law took effect


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Kathleen Sebelius appeared on an Oklahoma TV station to buck up Obamacare'€™s flagging numbers in the Sooner State, and had only a blank-stare response to the law's unpopularity

As information about the chasm between Obamacare's promises and its reality have reached the public, the program has become more and more unpopular – a fact that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius met with awkward silence during a Monday television interview in Oklahoma.
'At last check, 64 percent of Oklahomans aren't buying into the healthcare plan; they don't like Obamacare, and they've been pretty vocal about it,' a KWTV-9 reporter told her.

'Now that's going to be – still continue to be a tough sell, but we'll see how that plays out over the coming months.'
Sebelius, a deer trapped in TV's headlights, offered only a blank stare. Asked if she had lost the audio feed, the icy secretary responded, 'I can hear you. But I – thanks for having me.'
Hours earlier, she tooted Obama's horn during a fawning Huffington Post interview, claiming that healthcare.gov saw a surge in traffic when the president appeared on the gonzo show 'Between Two Ferns' on the Funny or Die website.
Obamacare 'definitely saw the Galifianakis bump,' she said, referring to the show's host Zach Galifianakis.

'As a mother of two 30-something sons, I know they're more likely to get their information on "Funny or Die" than they are on network TV,' she added.
Americans who missed the online broadcast still knew enough to queue up Monday for panic-induced sign-ups. Crushed with traffic, healthcare.gov crashed twice.


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'Between Two Ferns': the President of the United States gave a March 11 interview to comedian Zach Galifianakis, at a time when political reporters often fight to get a single question answered by one of Barack Obama's surrogates


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The Obama administration's health care website stumbled on deadline day for new sign-ups. Visitors to HealthCare.gov on Monday morning saw messages that the site was down for maintenance



On its way to 7 million, the Obama administration has never answered some key questions about the open enrollment period.
The White House has instead kept to its talking points.
'What I can tell you is that we expect there to be a good mix of people who were previously uninsured who now have insurance,' Carney said Monday.
'Certainly, there’s a significant number who now have qualified for Medicaid in those states that expanded Medicaid who will have insurance who didn’t have it before.'
The midnight deadline for enrollment has become a temporary formality, as the Obama administration has offered extensions to anyone willing to claim they tried in earnest to sign up in time.
Sebelius promised Congress weeks ago that there would be no extension.

The White House has compared it to voters who are permitted to cast ballots if they are in line when the polls close. But conservative opponents note that ballot officials won't accept voters' claims the day after an election.
California has also extended its deadline through April 15.

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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...igning-up.html

Conservative Daily

This video was certainly released on the right day...



A Well-Timed Video Release Certainly Makes Obama Look Like An April Fool

Except, unfortunately, the joke is on the American people.
IJREVIEW.COM

A Well-Timed Video Release Certainly Makes Obama Look Like An April Fool

By Caroline Schaeffer
8 hours ago



The American Action Network released an ad today which makes our President look like the joke’s on him. It juxtaposes clips of President Obama making his oft-repeated claims that people can keep their doctor and health care plan if they like them with clips from his recent WebMD “interview” in which he acknowledged that people are “gonna have to make some choices” and “they might end up having to switch doctors.”
In other words, he’s breaking those promises. Over and over again.
I wouldn’t say that the 4.6 million Americans who lost their health insurance as a result of Obamacare were able to make somechoices. The President chose for them, and his program forced a lot of people onto Obamacare. How convenient.
The ad does make our President look like a fool, but why does it feel like we’re the ones who have been pranked?

h/t Washington Free Beacon

That Priceless Moment When a Reporter Tells Sebelius How Unpopular Obamacare Is and She’s Speechless


http://www.ijreview.com/2014/04/1257...ke-april-fool/

http://www.alipac.us/f19/pelosi-foun...b-lock-300297/

http://www.alipac.us/f19/gov%92t-coo...nsured-300189/

http://www.alipac.us/f19/white-house...4/#post1403480

http://www.alipac.us/f9/rush-limbaug...1/#post1403485

Katie Pavlich on Fox: Obamacare Enrollments Will Not Help Democrats

Tue, April 01, 2014



"The enrollment period, ending technically today but really being extended out until people can get through that line, isn't going to change anything for Democrats," Townhall's Katie Pavlich told Fox News Monday. "Democrats on the campaign trail aren't out there saying 'this is working great for all of you.' They are saying 'we really need to fix this.' But they aren't offering any specific solutions on how to do that."

http://townhall.com/video/katie-pavl...campaign=nl_pm

Conservative Daily

While Democrats celebrate the 'success' of ObamaCare, you may want to check out some numbers.

Barack Obama's math is awfully fuzzy...



Obama May Want to Put the Cork Back In The Champagne Bottle After He Sees These ObamaCare Numbers

Never had to do math in community organizing.

ijreview.com