2014
The spin never seems to end. Why can’t we simply get the facts the first time around?
Nine million. That’s the number President Barack Obama touted last night as having signed up for health insurance.
President Barack Obama delivers the State of the Union address in the House Chamber at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., Jan. 28, 2014. (White House Photo by Pete Souza)
That total is important to supporters as a sign that the law is working — and as an indication of the difficulties Republicans would face to rescind the law or roll back certain provisions. Critics have pointed out that 9 million isn’t a huge number — and that some of those people, perhaps even many of them, were previously insured.
Here’s the breakdown supplied by the administration: 3 million have signed up for private plans through the federal and state health exchanges since they opened for enrollment in October. Another 6.3 million have been deemed eligible for Medicaid in the past three months of 2013. In addition, the administration had previously said that 3 million young adults under age 26 have been able to stay on their parents’ plans under the law.
Let’s parse those numbers a bit:
1) The 3 million enrolled in private coverage
A surge in late December and early January helped push enrollment totals to about 3 million despite the troubled rollout of the federal exchange and some state marketplaces. It puts sign-ups almost halfway to meeting the Congressional Budget Office projection that 7 million would sign up the first year with another two months left to go in open enrollment.
via Parsing The President’s 9 Million Enrollees – Capsules – The KHN Blog.
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