Issa preparing to eat some well-deserved crow.
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa held yet another "oversight" hearing on Thursday, trying to find something, anything that smelled like an Obamacare scandal. Instead, he got the gut-punch of finding out that there are officially
7.3 million paid up enrollees, beating the Congressional Budget Office's prediction of 6 million.
"As of Aug. 15 this year, we have 7.3 million Americans enrolled in health insurance marketplace coverage and these are individuals who paid their premiums. We are encouraged by the number of consumers who paid their premiums and continue to enroll in the marketplace coverage every day through special enrollment periods," [Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Marilyn] Tavenner said. […]
Compared to the enrollment total of 8 million detailed in a May report about the sign-up period that began last October, the retention rate for private Obamacare coverage would be more than 90 percent.
However, because people have been allowed to buy health insurance on the exchanges since then under special circumstances, such as marriage or the birth of a child, the count of people who were enrolled at any given time this year likely rose higher than 8 million.
There's always a lot of change in enrollments numbers, as people's life circumstances change and they move in and out of coverage because of marriage, new employment or loss of a job, and retirement. So 7.3 million
paid enrollments is just about where you'd expect it to be following the 8 million enrollment figure from May.
And it's more bad news for Republicans, who were absolutely certain a few months ago that Obamacare would be such a dud that none of those 8 million people would stick with it. Let's revisit a bit.
Here's Issa in May: "I think the important thing is that 20 percent to 33 percent are signing up and then not paying, which means that the 7 million figure was never 7 million or close to it." That statement came out with the release of a completely fabricated report the Republican Energy and Commerce Committee cooked up to "prove" that only 67 percent of people paid their first premium, so instead of 8 million enrollments, there'd be something like 5.5 million. And don't forget House Speaker John Boehner, who confidently claimed in March that "When you look at the 6 million Americans who have lost their policies and some—they claim 4.2 million people who have signed up—I don't know how many have actually paid for it—that would indicate to me a net loss of people with health insurance. And I actually do believe that to be the case.”
Republicans in the hearing tried to downplay the number (and Politico dutifully reports their skepticism) with a "yeah, but" kind of rejoinder. Issa tried to say the 7.3 figure was a "precipitous drop," (ignoring that it beat his own projection) and Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX) said that for "the past five months, the administration has been silent on enrollment details for the president’s healthcare law, and now we know why: the number was going down." Nice try there, boys, but that's one dead talking point.
Take a victory lap with Charles Gaba/Brainwrap here.