Success? Check out Obamacare’s dismal sign-up numbers

Thursday, Oct 3, 2013 at 12:20 PM EDT
Video at the Page Link:

The Obama Administration has made the case that the failure of the Obamacare exchanges to function properly on Tuesday is actually a sign of success. Apparently the glitches in the Healtcare.gov site were a result of SO many people trying to access the site to sign up for healthcare. As it turns out, that couldn’t be further from the truth.
For starters, you have to consider the story of Brendan Mahoney, a law student at the University of Connecticut, who has gone from a self-sufficient member of society to a welfare recipient in a matter of days.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Mahoney is a 30-year-old, third year law student who has been insured for the last three years “through a $2,400-a-year school-sponsored health plan. But he wanted to see what Obamacare had to offer.” After trying and failing to login a couple of times, Mahoney finally accessed the exchanges and, much to his surprise, realized he was eligible for Medicaid. So he signed up for Medicaid.
“So the great success story of Obamacare’s first day is the transformation of a future lawyer, who was already paying for his insurance, into a welfare case. There’s your success story, gang,” Glenn said on radio this morning. “That’s their intent. Get you hooked on welfare. Get you hooked on the dole. If they can get you hooked, then they know you will never, ever get off it. Don’t take it. Don’t do it. Just say no to Obamacare. It’s the most powerful drug that a government has ever asked us to inject into our own veins. Don’t do it.”
While Mahoney’s story may be considered a “victory” for the Obama Administration, the dismal signup numbers certainly aren’t.
“But they are saying that the reason why [Healthcare.gov] wasn’t working and hasn’t been working is because there’s too many people online. They have just been bombarded, so more people than they expected,” Glenn said. “In fact, California said their exchange got 5 million hits. 5 million hits. Of course it was going to crash. Who knew there were going to be 5 million hits? Unfortunately, we can check the stats.”
As it turns out, there were not 5 million hits, but rather about 1/10 of that. “While they claim it was 5 million, it was 645,000,” Pat said. “So, 514,000 people actually visited and produced 645,000 hits. Not 5 million”
Considering the government had three years to prepare for the launch of the exchanges, there is simply no excuse for the poor performance of the website – especially when you take into account the extremely low number of people who were visiting the site.Connecticut is another example.
“One of the Democratic senators was bragging about how great [the Obamacare rollout] was. And said that they got 167 applications the first day. Now, you have three years of constant debate over this, promotion, a gigantic rollout, and people flooding the web site, you would think [more people] went to the sites signed up,” Stu said. “You know, we went to the site and we had no intention of signing up. A lot of people went to check it out to see what the heck it was because it’s a big story… Only 0.04% of the uninsured people in Connecticut went to the site on the first day.”
That’s right, only 0.04% of the uninsured population of Connecticut visited Healthcare.gov on Tuesday.
“In Louisiana, which is the state of 4.6 million. I don’t know how many of those don’t have healthcare, but 4.6 million people live in Louisiana,” Pat said. “How many signed up. How many enrolled in the healthcare system so far? Zero.”
“Blue Cross Blue Shield is saying that. That’s where that number comes from,” Stu added. “We were told that insurance companies love this. Think about this. 0.04% is a hard number to wrap your head around. If they had 25 times as many people, they would have 1% of the uninsured that applied.”
So what does this all mean? Staying in line with the theme of today’s radio program, Glenn made the argument this is just another example of ‘nudge, shove, shoot.’
“Let’s go back to the original premise of this hour. What happens next? They have nudged. They have told you they made [healthcare] available. Now, today, they are saying, ‘Hey, if you sign up, you get a free phone.’ So, they are start to go give people free phones. There’s your next nudge. Here, we can’t get you in the door for free healthcare. So now we’re going to give you free healthcare and a free phone. They can’t even give it away,” Glenn said. “And the next one, after that, it’s getting shoved. You are going to get fined. And they are going to say, ‘Where’s your healthcare, buddy. Where’s your healthcare.’ And they are going to fine you. The IRS now knows. The IRS is the one enforcing them. Congratulations America, you have given them a police state. My gosh, what is wrong with our neighbors? What is wrong with our neighbors?”
“We have a big update, Congressman Jim Himes (D-CT) is now bragging about their new number, it’s up to 373 now,” Stu joked. “So, you are getting close to the magical 1%. You are not quite there, but you are almost there after two days. At this rate, within 1,000 years, we may see half the people in Connecticut insured.”

Front page image courtesy of the AP

http://www.glennbeck.com/2013/10/03/...gn-up-numbers/