On Thursday we were informed by Marilyn B. Tavenner, Administrator for CMS that Obamacare has 7.3 million enrolled through exchanges and that 91 percent of them had paid for their health insurance, (see everywhere including Reuters, 9/18/14, Reuters.com.)
We must tread carefully in considering the 7.3 million number because we know that there is a “Need to Succeed” associated with Obamacare that has fostered a dishonesty and inaccuracy in everything from its costs to its provisions to its enrollment from the very beginning and we certainly don’t want to encourage more of that.
On the other hand, it’s sort of awesome that we’re still being told how successful Obamacare is. I mean 7.3 million of whom the administration estimates that 91 percent have paid, that’s 6.6 million…Success?
Even if every one of those 7.3 were newly insured (which they’re not) and if every one of those 7.3 were paid up (which they’re not) that would mean that in addressing the problem of the 47 million uninsured that the administration was declaring victory by making a 15 percent dent in the problem. Success?
Finally, that 7.3 million is less than the 8 million enrolled that the same Marilyn B. Tavenner “announced” in April, hardly a trend worth bragging about. Success?
I typically argue against too much scrutiny of these numbers because for individual consumer experience this number is not a high priority. With the issues surrounding Obamacare impacting individual consumers, I have typically placed “enrollment” as dead last. We have enough to worry about (“Enrollment: The RED (or BLUE) Herring,” http://conoutofconsumer.blogspot.com/search?q=enrollment.
But I’m about to amend my near-total dismissal of the fun with numbers approach and obsessive focus on enrollment in view of another story released this week about how Minnesota’s lowest-cost insurer will no longer participate in that state’s exchange, “Lowest-Cost Insurer Drops from Minnesota Exchange,” 9/16/2014, CBS Minnesota, http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2014/09/16/preferredone-pulls-out-of-mnsure-for-2015/.
The same CBS Minnesota site and article, http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2014/09/16/preferredone-pulls-out-of-mnsure-for-2015/, reports, “Company spokesman Steve Peterson told KSTP-TV, which first reported the decision, that staying on MNsure wasn’t financially or administratively sustainable. The membership they gained through MNsure was small, but was taking ‘a significant amount of our resources’ to administer, Peterson said.”
“THE MEMBERSHIP THEY GAINED THROUGH MNsure WAS SMALL,” that’s enrollment. This may provide us with new insight as to why the NEED TO SUCCEED approach to Obamacare is trying so desperately to look at those 7.3 million in a positive light. Obviously there is no success without participating health insurers in the public exchanges. If ENROLLMENT isn’t high enough, other insurers will likely find participation in exchanges to be not worth it which would mean higher prices and/or reduced choice for consumers…Again, hardly "reform."
