Most People Signing Up for Obamacare Already Had Insurance, Say Industry Sources

When the Obama administration
announced its latest set of enrollment numbers for Obamacare
earlier this month, officials on a conference call did not provide
information about how many people signing up for insurance under
the law were previously uninsured. That information would come
later, officials said, although they wouldn’t say when. Not would
they explain how, exactly, the data was being tracked and
measured.

Given how heavily the law’s backers relied on the expansion of
coverage to the uninsured in selling the law, one might
think that this would be a rather important figure. But in fact it
seemed rather clear that the administration was none too eager to
provide these numbers. 

A report in The Wall Street Journal this weekend
suggests a possible reason behind the reticence: The majority of
sign ups appear to be from people who were already insured.

Early signals suggest the majority of the 2.2 million people who
sought to enroll in private insurance through new marketplaces
through Dec. 28 were previously covered elsewhere, raising
questions about how swiftly this part of the health overhaul will
be able to make a significant dent in the number of uninsured.

Insurers, brokers and consultants estimate at least two-thirds
of those consumers previously bought their own coverage or were
enrolled in employer-backed plans.

The data, based on surveys of enrollees, are preliminary. But
insurers say the tally of newly insured consumers is falling short
of their expectations, a worrying trend for an industry looking to
the law to expand the ranks of its customers.

… Only 11% of consumers who bought new coverage under the law
were previously uninsured, according to a McKinsey & Co. survey
of consumers thought to be eligible for the health-law
marketplaces. 

Couple this with the millions of insurance cancellations that
are happening because of the law and it appears possible that there
has been no net expansion of private coverage at all.

Given the fuzziness of the data, it’s still hard to tell exactly
what’s happening. And even if it’s true that there are no more
uninsured now than there were last year, there’s still time for
that to change. As the administration is keen to remind us, people
who want coverage have until the end of March to sign up for
coverage this year. But even still, this doesn’t exactly bode well
for Obamacare’s future. Certainly, the law isn’t off to the kind of
start that the administration hoped for, or promised.