Does the White House Know How Many People Have Paid Obamacare Premiums?

Perhaps the biggest frustration
with the administration’s Obamacare enrollment reports is that
they’re not really enrollment reports.

Instead, the reports count the number of people who have “picked
a plan.” But not all of those people have paid, which means not all
of them are truly enrolled in health coverage.

How many haven’t paid? That’s hard to say. In scattered news
reports, several insurers have indicated that about 20 percent of
people who signed up didn’t pay for the first month. But
administration officials say they do not know, and are not
systematically collecting that information. 

However, the administration may have access to that information
anyway, an unnamed insurance company source
tells Politico:

The latest administration figures show that 4.2 million people
have selected health plans in the new insurance markets. Insurance
industry officials at four of the big national health plans tell
POLITICO that about 15 to 20 percent of people who have signed up
have not yet paid their first monthly premium — the final step to
get coverage.

And they’ve told the White House that, too, insurance industry
officials say.

“They have a lot more information than they’re letting on,” one
industry source said of the Obama administration. “They have real
hard data about the percent that have paid … If they have not
processed those yet and compiled the data, that is a choice they
are making. But they have that data now.”

Obviously we don’t know what insurance company information has
or hasn’t been shared with federal officials, but it’s hard to
believe that the administration has not inquired about payment
rates or attempted to ascertain what the true enrollment numbers
might be. The administration might not be collecting that data, but
officials are probably aware of more than they’re letting
on.