Obamacare’s Inflated Enrollment Numbers

Last week the Obama administration exuberantly proclaimed Obamacare’s “surging” enrollment had topped five million people. This was up from 4.2 million people in the previous week’s official HHS report, which gave cumulative enrollment figures through February. Several factors could cause the bloated figures to fall significantly.

Monthly Enrollment Rate Falling

Democrats hope more people will sign up as the enrollment deadline approaches, but this year’s sign-ups continue to lag behind 2013 levels. Obamacare enrollment fell for the second straight month – 942,800 people selected plans in February, a drop from 1.15 million in January and 1.79 million in December.

Number of monthly enrollments dropping

How Many People Paid Their First Month’s Premium?

The Obama administration’s report still doesn’t provide transparent enrollment data. It continues to count people as “enrolled” in Obamacare if they successfully selected a health insurance plan, but until people pay the first month’s health insurance premium, they do not have coverage. According to the New York Times on February 13, 2014, about 20 percent of people who signed up by the beginning of this year never paid their January premium.

How Many People Are Newly Insured?

The administration falsely boasts that more than nine million people gained health insurance coverage due to Obamacare. But it still hasn’t clarified how many of those people simply renewed coverage, switched from one private plan to another, or would have qualified for Medicaid without Obamacare. A recent McKinsey & Company survey found that just one-quarter – 27 percent – of enrollees were previously uninsured, and only half of them actually paid their first month’s premium. Even this number is just an approximation. At an insurance industry conference earlier this month, an HHS official said the number of previously uninsured people signing up is “not a data point that we are really collecting in any sort of systematic way.”

Exchange Sign-Ups Continue Trending Older

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said last September that seven million sign-ups by the end of March – including 2.7 million young, healthy adults – is what “success looks like.” So far, only 1,075,990 – 25 percent – of Obamacare exchange sign-ups are between the ages of 18 and 34. If this demographic composition holds, premiums could skyrocket.

Enrollment of young people falls well short of administration goal

Most People Eligible to Buy a Plan Didn’t Select One

HHS estimates 8.75 million people have completed the enrollment process and can pick an Obamacare exchange plan. Of those, only 4.2 million have actually selected a plan – a 48 percent take-up rate. Among people deemed eligible to receive taxpayer subsidies, 66 percent selected a plan. Of the 3.5 million people who don’t qualify for a subsidy, just 689,973 selected a plan – a take-up rate of less than 20 percent.

Open enrollment ends next Monday, March 31. Soon after, insurers will have to start calculating premium rates for their 2015 exchange plans. The Obama administration is running out of time to address the growing uncertainty about its already suspect enrollment numbers.