The White House Inflated Obamacare Enrollment Figures By Counting 400,000 Dental Plans

Since the end of
Obamacare’s first open enrollment period earlier this year,
enrollment data has been sparse. The administration stopped
releasing monthly reports, and has provided enrollment updates
sporadically, with little context or detail.

And, it turns out, at least one of the counts was wrong,
artifically inflated by the inclusion of almost 400,000 dental
plans that the administration now claims were mistakenly
included.

When Medicare administrator Marilyn Tavenner appeared before
Congress in September, she said that 7.3 million people were
currently enrolled. That number was boosted by the inclusion of
380,000 dental plans that should not have been included,
Bloomberg News reported today.

The inclusion of the dental plans at that time pushed the total
over the administration’s stated goal of 7 million
enrolled. 

Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell said
on Twitter today that the inclusion of those plans was a “mistake”
and “unacceptable.” 

The administration later reported that 7.1 million people were
still enrolled, but according to Bloomberg News, the total number
of enrollees as of October 15 is about 6.7 million. At the end of
the first open enrollment period, the administration repeatedly
touted its success at getting 8 million sign-ups during the first
year. 

What the new figures reveal, then, is the fragility and
instability of that initial figure. Not only did the number of
enrollments continue to drop during and after the summer, the
figure wasn’t as high as reported in post-open-enrollment updates.
This is probably at least one reason why enrollment targets for the
second enrollment period were recently
slashed by about 50 percent.

Obamacare’s second open enrollment period started last Saturday,
but enrollment data so far remains sparse. About 100,000
applicatons were sent in to the system on Saturday, but as Jeffrey
Young of The Huffington Post notes, it’s
not clear how many of those people actually went ahead and selected
a plan. The Department of Health and Human Services declined a
request for further information from The Washington
Post.