We’ve previously reported how the administration is already misrepresenting Obamacare enrollments by including Medicaid renewals, but a new study shows yet another exaggeration distorting numbers.
A new report from the Wall Street Journal shows another reason why enrollment stats are not what they seem:
They cite several industry surveys on the coverage history of those signing up for insurance on the Obamacare exchanges. The first, from McKinsey & Co., indicates that “only 11 percent of consumers who bought new coverage under the law were previously uninsured.” McKinsey surveyed 4,563 individuals “thought to be eligible for the health-law marketplaces,” of which 389 had enrolled in exchange-based plans.
Even if we take the most generous figure the administration has put out of 6 million enrollments, that means only 660,000 were not enrolled before Obamacare implementation. Won’t see that from the administration. Just one survey doesn’t prove anything, right? Well then here’s another!
HealthMarkets, a insurance holding company based in Texas, conducted its own survey based on the 7,500-or-so people that the company enrolled in exchange-based plans. Based on their survey, obtained by Wilde and Mathews, only 35 percent of enrollees were previously uninsured. 10 percent previously had employer-sponsored coverage, but were dropping into the exchanges either because the exchanges offered a better (i.e., taxpayer-subsidized) deal, or because their employer had stopped offering coverage.
“But that’s just two surveys!” you might say. Ok, fine, here’s a third:
Priority Health, a non-profit health insurer in Michigan, surveyed 1,000 “enrollees…in plans that comply with the law,” and found that only a quarter were previously uninsured. Another 25 percent had previously enjoyed employer-sponsored coverage; the remaining 50 percent had been previously covered under individually-purchased plans.
So, of the 6 million insured figure cited by the Obama administration, only 2.1 million signed up to Obamacare insurance rather than Medicaid, and of those, as few as 213,000 (11%) were not previously insured.
Looks like Obama is getting a jump on the “lie of the year” for 2014 too.