Obamacare Sign-up Rates

Despite HHS’ refusal to provide any figures about Obamacare policy purchase rates—they’re still routinely touting Healthcare.gov visit rates and account creation rates as though those numbers mean anything—some information is trickling out.  The Daily Caller has some of those data.

Here are some of the cancellation numbers:

  • Insurance carrier Florida Blue cancelled 300,000 policies—80% of Florida’s individual coverage policies
  • California’s Kaiser Permanente canceled 160,000 plans—half of its insurance plans in the state
  • Blue Shield of California sent 119,000 notices in mid-September alone
  • Insurance Highmark in Pittsburgh plan to cancel 20% of their total plans
  • Independence Blue Cross in Philadelphia plan to cancel 45% of their total plans
  • 800,000 plans in New Jersey will be cancelled by the start of 2014

This compares with Obamacare sign-ups—anecdotal data to be sure, since the Obamacare administration, as I noted above, refuses to provide any figures at all:

  • South Dakota reported that 23 people enrolled in the exchanges
  • North Dakota enrolled 20
  • Alaska has enrolled 7

The Daily Mail reported two weeks ago that, from its own sources, all of 51,000 Americans had signed up in the first week (since then, the government has really clamped down on leaks about its numbers).  If we optimistically double that rate as Healthcare.gov starts to get its software…kinks…worked out, we get an additional 250,000 actually signed up by now.  Even quadrupling that first week rate—to 460,000 by now—leaves the sign-ups far short of the cancellations, with more cancellations yet to come.

Hmm….

“I’m Not Pulling the Cat’s Tail”

President Barack Obama had this to say, through his Press Secretary Jay Carney, about the Obama lie that “if you like your insurance, you can keep your insurance.  Period.”

Insurers pulled those plans away from them.  The law [Obamacare] could not order insurers not to cancel that plan.

His…spokeswoman…Valerie Jarrett had much the same thing to say.

Never mind that those plans no longer were legal under Obamacare and that Obama knew it.

“I’m just hanging on to the tail.  The cat’s doing the pulling.”