It's been several days since the administration
announced 7.3 million paid-up Obamacare enrollments this year. That announcement was perfectly timed to be given during a House Oversight Committee hearing in which Chairman Darrell Issa was fishing for anything that he could even remotely claim was a scandal. Instead, he got the
death of an anti-Obamacare meme.
Remember how, when the fiasco of the broken website was overcome and the enrollments started pouring in and beating all expectations, the Republicans trotted out the talking point that only a tiny proportion would end up paying? Just a reminder:
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.”
And you can't forget Reince.
Report: 1/3 of #ObamaCare "enrollees" haven't paid premiums. How does not paying the premium constitute enrollment?
http://t.co/...
— @Reince
So where are all these guys now? How have they responded to the news that all of these people who signed up for Obamacare did it because they actually do want health insurance and really are willing to pay for it?
Crickets.