CBS News: Administration has Obamacare enrollment numbers

Fri, 11/01/2013 - 11:43am | posted by Jason Pye

White House and Obama Administration officials have repeatedly said in press briefings in other statements to the media that they won't have the enrollment numbers from the Obamacare exchanges until mid-November. Many have doubted that claim, believing instead that the administration is suppressing the data after a disastrous rollout of the federal exchange website.

Sharyl Attkisson of CBS News, however, has obtained documents showing that the administration likely has the information sought by members of Congress and the media, but they have chosen not to release the the federal numbers publicly:

Early enrollment figures are contained in notes from twice-a-day 'war room' meetings convened within the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services after the website failed on Oct. 1. They were turned over in response to a document request from the House Oversight Committee.

The website launched on a Tuesday. Publicly, the government said there were 4.7 million unique visits in the first 24 hours. But at a meeting Wednesday morning, the war room notes say 'six enrollments have occurred so far.'

They were with BlueCross BlueShield North Carolina and Kansas City, CareSource and Healthcare Service Corporation.

By Wednesday afternoon, enrollments were up to 'approximately 100.' By the end of Wednesday, the notes reflect '248 enrollments' nationwide.[...]The notes leave no doubt that some enrollment figures, which the administration has chosen to keep secret, are available.

With all of the problems with the site, it's quite a stretch to believe that the Obama Administration was able to reach its stated goal of 494,620 enrollments by the end of October, which was, as the Associated Press noted, 'portrayed as a slow start.'

To date, there have been 36,092 confirmed enrollments on the individual state exchanges, according to EnrollMaven.com. The administration needs 7 million enrollments, having a good number of healthy individuals signing up for coverage, by the time the open enrollment period ends on March 31, 2014.

Administration officials are, of course, downplaying the report, s aying that they don't have solid numbers and won't until they won't until they 'coordinat[e] information from different sources such as paper, on-line, and call centers, verifying with insurers, and collecting data from states.'

But doesn't anybody believe them, given the some of the things that the American public has found out this week, not just about people losing their health insurance because of Obamacare after the President explicitly said they could keep it and other issues, like the frequent stories about the NSA and claims of ignorance from the White House.

There's a real credibility gap here, and it's getting worse by the day.