Obamacare’s Enrollment Numbers Aren’t Real Enrollment Numbers

Obamacare’s Enrollment Numbers Aren’t Real Enrollment Numbers

Combine the reported federal enrollments with the 49,000 people estimated to have enrolled in state-based exchanges, and you still have less then twenty percent of the administration’s enrollment goal.

But these numbers shouldn’t be taken at face value. That’s because the administration isn’t actually counting enrollments. Instead, it’s counting the number of people who have placed health plans in their online shopping carts—not necessarily people who have signed up and agreed to be billed, and certainly not people who have actually paid the premium for the first month of coverage. It’s the equivalent of Amazon counting a TV sold every time someone puts a TV in his or her online shopping cart, regardless of whether or not they actually go through the checkout process.