Obama Spikes The Football - No Mention Of The Millions Of Americans Who Were Deceived

Politico: “Obama spikes the football.” In a press conference yesterday, the president made a big deal again over Obamacare enrollment numbers, but even the mainstream media wasn’t convinced by the cherry picking of statistics.

Reuters recaps, “President Barack Obama mounted a vigorous effort on Thursday to show his signature healthcare law is working and dismissed Republican critics who are using flaws in Obamacare to campaign for ousting Democrats from the U.S. Congress in November. Appearing in the White House briefing room days before leaving the national stage for a week-long trip to Asia, Obama used a news conference to make the case that the Affordable Care Act had mended nicely from its disastrous October rollout. He announced that 8 million people had now signed up for health insurance and that 35 percent of enrollees through the federal marketplace are under the age of 35.” But, Reuters adds, “Obama's remarks reflected deep concerns at the White House that Republicans may be able to topple Democrats from control of the U.S. Senate in November elections and build on their majority in the House of Representatives. A Republican-run Congress would make legislative achievements in Obama's last two years in office difficult.”

Politico casts a critical eye on the Obama administrations statistics. “OK, Obama’s proud of the final enrollment number. We got it,” they write. However, “There are still key details that the White House hasn’t included in past enrollment announcements, and it didn’t this time either. The numbers still don’t say how many of the 8 million people have paid their premiums, because they’re not officially enrolled until they’ve paid. The best estimates from the insurance industry have suggested that anywhere from 15 percent to 20 percent haven’t paid yet, though at least some of those have been trying and some will likely settle their bills. And the numbers still don’t tell us how many of the new customers were uninsured before, and how many were just swapping out one health insurance plan for another. In fact, the Obama administration didn’t release a full enrollment report on Thursday, as was widely expected. Instead, it just circulated the topline figures in the White House fact sheet, which gave health care experts — and the critics — less information to go on. And when it did release the numbers, it played up the best ones. The number that leaked early in the day was the age mix: 35 percent of the people who signed up in the federal health insurance exchange were under age 35. But that figure includes children. The number that mattered more to most health care experts was the young adults age 18 to 34 — and 28 percent of the new customers were in that group. . . . But the Kaiser Family Foundation’s Larry Levitt said that number is ‘still short of the target population’ of young adults.”

And while the White House is waving its arms and shouting about enrollment numbers, the many failures of Obamacare continue to make themselves apparent, as the editors of the Las Vegas Review-Journal reminds us today, “For the Affordable Care Act, the other shoe has dropped so many times that the legislation now needs to grow feet at a prolific pace to keep up. And far from being over, there are many more shoes to drop in the coming months and years, with the latest being significant — and in some cases exorbitant — increases in monthly premiums. As reported by Scott Gottlieb for Forbes.com, health insurance premiums are showing historically sharp increases, based on a survey earlier this month of 148 brokers in the individual and small group markets. The survey, conducted by Morgan Stanley health care analysts, noted that rates in those two categories accelerated more in the past quarter than in any of the 12 prior quarterly periods in which the survey was conducted. The average increase exceeds 11 percent in the small group market (employers of 1-100 people) and 12 percent in the individual market, with analysts concluding to Mr. Gottlieb that the “increases are largely due to changes in the ACA.” Not surprisingly, of the four areas noted as primary causes of the increases, one is that Obamacare does not allow insurers to vary premiums between young and old beneficiaries based on the actual costs of providing the coverage. Eleven to 12 percent is a pretty significant uptick, especially since premiums have been on the rise over the past two years as more of Obamacare’s regulations have been implemented.”

They point out, “Like almost everything else with Obamacare, this is not what we were promised. . . . It can’t be said enough that, for all but a limited number of people, Obamacare is massively punitive and getting more so by the day, be it through increased premiums, deductibles and out-of-pocket costs, forcing people to lose their current doctors and plans, or the actual tax penalty for not holding an Obamacare-compliant policy. Repeal the law and start over, before it starts raining shoes.”

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said yesterday, “Noticeably absent from the President’s remarks today was any mention of the millions of Americans who were deceived about what Obamacare would mean for them and their families. Countless Americans have unexpectedly been forced out of the plans they had and liked, are now shouldering dramatically higher premiums, and can no longer use the doctors and hospitals they choose. It’s long past time for Washington Democrats to work with us to remedy the mess they created — and that means repealing this law and replacing it with real reforms that actually lower costs.”

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