For the first time, a high ranking Obama Administration official has conceded Obamacare sign-ups are far less than predicted. Vice President Joe Biden acknowledged on Wednesday the March 31 deadline will come and go without the healthcare law reaching its targeted goal of 7 million new enrollees.
Although the Congressional Budget Office, of all government agencies, predicted 78 million Americans would be enrolled by the target date, even with government subsidies provided under the Affordable Care Act, that is a pipe dream.
So what has happened?
The program came out of the starting gate October 1 with a website that had not been fully tested. That made it nearly impossible for common Americans to actually shop for insurance plans.
Two months into the disastrous start, the CBO trimmed their forecaster numbers to 6 million in 2014.
Now it seems the non-partisan agency must again go back to the drawing board and lower the numbers even more.
Biden spoke to a small group on his way to a Minneapolis/Democratic National Committee fundraiser; the very same people responsible for signing others up for the plan in Minneapolis.
Using as positive a note as he could muster, Biden said, “We may not get to seven million, we may get to five or six, but that’s a hell of a start.”
But it’s a known fact that the Obama Administration has been elevating the numbers falsely from the beginning. Nevertheless, the administration and allied groups are pushing hard to sell big cities on the importance of signing up.
Good luck.
