Initial Obamacare enrollment estimates far short of targets: reports

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

Initial Obamacare enrollment estimates far short of targets: reports

BY CAROLINE HUMER
Mon Nov 11, 2013 6:41pm EST

(Reuters) - Initial enrollment estimates for President Barack Obama's healthcare reform program show participation is falling far short of expectations, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal, raising pressure on the White House to get its rollout back on track.

Fewer than 50,000 Americans were able to sign up for new Obamacare health insurance plans in October through the error-plagued HealthCare.gov website, below the federal government's target, the newspaper reported on Monday, citing two people familiar with the matter. The data is from 36 states.

Official enrollment data for all 50 states and the District of Columbia will not be released by the administration until sometime later this week.

A low enrollment tally will likely be seized upon by Obamacare's Republican critics as evidence the law's implementation is failing.

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Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/11/us-usa-healthcare-enrollment-idUSBRE9A906P20131111

[Iwasthere]

1. Denial of service attacks...

Servers were burdened by malicious hackers ... wonder who was behind that

[Igel]

2. There was an article about the programs.

But the only article I read also said there was no evidence of widespread use--without mentioning even scant evidence of use.

Another DUer pointed out that this was old tech and left a trail, so users could easily be tracked.

Opportunity + motive =/= execution.

[frazzled]

3. As I understand it ...

you are not officially "enrolled," in the insurance companies' way of counting, until you actually pay the first month's premium. Given that the policies don't begin until January 1, it's not surprising to me that--if this is the metric being used for the estimates--not all that many people are officially enrolled.

The article is unclear as to where these estimates come from. They also don't mention how many people have formed an account--probably a better measure than those who have enrolled in a particular plan in advance of the start date.

[PoliticAverse]

6. There's a semantic problem, 'enrollment' seems to mean a different thing depending on who is

using it. Does it mean signed up with the insurance company online, or does it mean the
insurance company has already recorded the first payment?

[spanone]

4. well, if the website hasn't worked, what's a previous estimate worth? nuttin'

[PoliticAverse]

5. Is this really surprising since the website hasn't been working well? Also,

people have until Dec 15th to sign up for insurance that starts Jan 1, and March 31st to avoid any penalty.

[Lifelong Dem]

7. I'll wait for Wednesday when they release the actual numbers