Washington, DC – Today, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI) made the following statement in response to the Administration’s release of Exchange enrollments for the month of October.
 
“Americans deserve access to quality, affordable health care, but this law isn’t providing that.  More people in Michigan have had their health care plans cancelled than have enrolled nationwide.  Given that these early enrollment numbers are inflated to include those just ‘shopping’ for a plan, it is clear that the real truth is even worse than we are being told.

“Even if this data was an accurate picture, the Administration would need to enroll 68,000 people per day to meet their year-end goal.  However, the website isn’t even designed to handle that much traffic and is currently capable of only handling less than half that much.

“With the little data we have so far, I fear we could see a fundamental breakdown of the insurance market with coverage gaps and skyrocketing premiums – pricing millions of Americans out of health care, yet still forced to pay the individual mandate tax.  We need the real data – including who is signing up, what kind of coverage they are getting and what the risk pool looks like – so we can take concrete steps to protect Americans from getting hit hard by higher premiums, or worse yet, a loss of coverage.”
 
Background:  A September 5, 2013 memo from Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services Administrator Tavenner to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius obtained by the Committee provides the Administration’s month-by-month, state-by-state targets for enrollment in the ObamaCare Exchanges.  Within the memo, which accounted for a slow start, the Administration projected 494,620 people would completely enroll (select and purchase a plan) in October.  The inflated numbers released today show that they achieved 21 percent of the Administration’s October enrollment goal.  In an October 29, 2013 hearing with CMS Administrator Tavenner, Chairman Camp predicted that the Administration was likely to hit less than one quarter of this October estimate of 494,620.
 
HHS official projections for October: 494,620
Inflated “enrollment” numbers for October:106,185
Inflated “enrollment” numbers for October in state-run Exchanges: 79,391
Inflated “enrollment” numbers for October in federally-run Exchange: 26,794
Inflated percent of October “enrollment” achieved: 21