Roughly 100,000 people signed up for health insurance through the online federal exchange last month, according to a report from Bloomberg. The November ObamaCare enrollment numbers do represent almost 4 times the number from October , but still not enough if Bloomberg’s source is correct.
In the month of October, the ObamaCare enrollment numbers were so low, if the administration hopes to meet their quota and avoid a “death spiral,” they will need nearly a million paying sign-ups each week starting next month in order to meet their March goals of 7 million.
Health and Human Services spokeswoman Joanne Peters would not confirm the specific number but did say the agency expects the final numbers will show an increase for November.
“We’re in the process of scrubbing final data and expect to report November numbers in mid-December, but we expect that enrollment will increase with the technical improvements we’ve made, enrollment taking place across our customer service channels and the surge in enrollment that many states who are running their own marketplaces have reported,” Peters said. “ At the same time, it’s important to remember we are just two months into a six-month open enrollment period that we expect will ramp up over time as we’ve seen in other implementation efforts, such as Massachusetts and Medicare Part D.”
(Read More: Latest ObamaCare News Post-Deadline Equals More Broken Promises)
Both Massachusetts and Medicare Part D have been favorite yet inaccurate analogies for proponents of the law, as Sunday show rounds were filled with the same one-liners.
The Obama administration downplayed expectations throughout the month after promising to meet their self-imposed November 30 deadline. U.S. government and contractor programmers were working 24/7 on the problem-plagued ObamaCare website.
The preliminary November numbers reflect individuals who successfully selected a plan. However, Jay Carney could not even tell media reporters when asked at the White House press conference if these individuals would be covered this year.
According to the person “familiar with the program’s progress,” the administration is banking that most American consumers will sign up early next year as the ObamaCare enrollment period nears its March 31 deadline. The person said that the final numbers were still being calculated.
While still far from the original goal, the jump in November Obamacare enrollment numbers will no doubt be touted by some delusional members of the mainstream media. Without far more young, healthy paying Americans in the exchanges the program will fail, blowing a hole in the federal budget. Lopsided Medicaid enrollment is already threatening the program’s success.
(Read More: ObamaCare Enrollment Imperiled By Lopsided Medicaid Applicants)
A recent document obtained by People’s Pundit Daily from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services found that total health expenditures due to ObamaCare will reach $5 trillion by 2022.
The person who provided the November Obamacare enrollment numbers also claimed the data points to a steady increase in sign-ups even before major website improvements were completed at the end of November.
Only 26,794 people signed up for private plans in October, while 79,391 enrolled through 14 states which, along with the District of Columbia, are running their own exchanges and websites. Most have experienced fewer technical problems. The federal website serves 36 states.
Though the administration and allies in the media are sounding the horn of success regarding the website, improvements in front-end experiences for users who were trying to enroll in plans is not enough to solve the fundamental problems with the site. The site fails to properly send correct private user data to insurers on the back end, and it fails to do it securely, which opens up users to the potential to have their private information compromised.
(Read More: ObamaCare Website Problems ‘Impossible’ To Fix By Deadline)
That system is supposed to send user data and federal subsidy payments to insurers, but because it is not working correctly, the administration has simply directed large amounts of funds in hopes it will cover the cost when it is sorted out at a later date.
Last month, the site failed with just 1,100 users at a time, but now that the site can handle 50,000 at a time, or about 800,000 per day according to the report, the law’s proponents are touting improvements. Unfortunately, that is just not the case.
