Just 27k Enroll in Federal ObamaCare Exchanges

Just 27k Enroll in Federal ObamaCare Exchanges

The Obama Administration admitted on Wednesday that just over 100,000 people had enrolled for coverage through the ObamaCare health exchanges. The number was one-fifth the number predicted by the Administration in early September. Most of these enrollments, however, were through state exchanges. Just under 27,000 people enrolled through the federal exchanges. 

The federal government runs its own exchange, as well as exchanges for 36 states. The 14 states running their own exchanges had almost 3X the number of enrollees as the struggling HealthCare.gov. 

The low federal enrollees may actually be worse than the already low 27k figure. Earlier this week, the Obama Administration said it was expanding its definition of “enrolling” to include people that had shopped for a plan but hadn’t yet purchased one. This is kind of like GM counting test drives as sales. 

In the coming weeks, ObamaCare needs hundreds of thousands to sign up for coverage. Otherwise, the basic numbers don’t work for insurers. They need millions of young, healthy enrollees to cover the increased costs of new coverage mandates.

Wednesday’s report will likely increase the political pressure to delay ObamaCare.  

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