Latest Obamacare Enrollment Report: 8 Million Sign-Ups, Below-Target Demographic Mix, and Still No Word on How Many Have Paid

The administration’s first
Obamacare enrollment report since the end of open enrollment in
March dropped this month, and there’s not much we haven’t heard or
seen before: The administration is still touting 8 million
sign-ups—technically 8.019 million—when the official open
enrollment period is combined with stragglers who came in during
the special enrollment period through April 19. It’s still the case
that just 28 percent of those sign-ups were between the ages of 18
and 34, far short of the administration’s target of 39 percent.
State-by-state variation remains significant, with some states
seeing robust sign-up activity and others posting relatively weak
numbers.

And, as before, it’s still not clear how many of these sign-ups
have actually paid—or will pay—their first month’s premium, and are
therefore completely enrolled in coverage. As I noted this morning,
Republicans on the House Energy & Commerce Committee requested
that information from insurers participating in the exchanges, but
their numbers are of limited value. The Committee report found that
just 67 percent of sign-ups so far had signed up in the federal
marketplace as of April 15. But lots of those people have until the
beginning of May, when their coverage kicks in, to pay. For some,
the deadline is even later.

Still, the E&C Committee report is enough to make you wonder
why the administration hasn’t bothered to release information about
payment rates themselves. White House officials have said that
insurers are the ones with the data, but that doesn’t explain why
he administration could not have obtained and released it, with
context about payment deadlines, on their own.

Back in November, an anonymous administration official
told The Washington Post that collecting this
information wasn’t realistic. “To determine payment information,”
the official said, “you’re talking about tracking down information
from a large number of different insurance companies in 50
different states plus DC, all with different regulations and
procedures, which makes collecting payment information implausible
at this point.”

Implausible! Practically impossible! Well, apparently it’s not
that hard, at least within the federal exchange network
that covers 36 states, because Republicans in the House seem to
have managed to do it without too much difficulty. Surely the White
House, which is working closely with the insurers operating in the
exchanges and which is supposed to be building a system to track
crucial insurer payment information, could get these numbers from
participating insurers.

Instead, the White House is trying to have it both ways, with
Press Secretary Jay Carney essentially
arguing earlier today that the GOP Committee report is wrong,
but that the administration doesn’t have the information to
release. Basically: We don’t have the information, but we know
theirs is wrong.

Because of the payment deadlines and the lack of state exchange
data, the GOP House Committee report is certainly incomplete, and
it’s of limited value as a result. But thanks to the White House’s
unwillingness to be transparent and release its own information,
it’s still the best data we have.