The truth behind the ObamaCare numbers

By any measure, the Affordable Care Act has been disastrous. But you would not know it by the administration’s fist-pumping and ball-spiking. The trumpeted headline dominating the news coverage is that the ObamaCare goal of 7 million enrollments was met. But this is horribly misleading. The reality is that the administration has, for months, refused...

By any measure, the Affordable Care Act has been disastrous. But you would not know it by the administration’s fist-pumping and ball-spiking.

The trumpeted headline dominating the news coverage is that the ObamaCare goal of 7 million enrollments was met. But this is horribly misleading. The reality is that the administration has, for months, refused to reveal the number of paid enrollments – which would tell you the number that are actually covered – and the number of previously uninsured Americans who gained coverage under ObamaCare.

Instead of counting people who have actually paid for a plan, the administration is counting anyone who put a plan in his or her shopping cart, but has not necessarily paid, as being enrolled. While the administration has refused to provide actual enrollment numbers, national survey data reveal that the number of paid enrollments is likely closer to 5 million.

In the normal churn of the health-insurance market, insured individuals switch plans. When someone who is already insured switches, their insurance status does not change. But the administration is counting those who have switched plans and enrolled in the exchange as part of their tally.

Furthermore, the 7 million enrollees figure is likely dominated by the millions who had their insurance policies canceled as a direct result of ObamaCare. That total exceeds 5 million insurance policies across the country and represents millions more Americans. That is why a sign-up number of 7 million tells us nothing about how ObamaCare has moved the previously uninsured into the ranks of the insured.

As recently as last year, the Congressional Budget Office estimated a 14 million reduction in the nation’s uninsured as a result of ObamaCare. These estimates, which are based on 7 million exchange signups, 9 million Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program, or CHIP, enrollments, and a loss of 2 million covered in the individual market, assume that the exchange signups are dominated by the previously uninsured.

The more striking statistic is that the previously uninsured are far less likely to actually pay for a plan, and make up about one-third of those covered. Taken together, the president’s health-care overhaul barely moved the needle on moving the uninsured into private health-insurance coverage. The number of newly insured is likely well below 2 million.

While the president promised to expand private health-care access and affordability, the opposite has occurred. This law deprived millions of people of the private coverage they had. Workers in the lowest-wage sectors are having their hours cut. Health-insurance premiums skyrocketed this year and are set to do so again next year. Many are paying more in premiums and deductibles. The nation’s top hospitals and many doctors are not available under the ACA plans. By any measure, this law is failing to deliver on its promised goals.