Duped by bogus Obamacare enrollment figures: Insurance execs humiliate wingnuts

[G_j]

http://www.salon.com/2014/05/07/duped_by_bogus_obamacare_enrollment_figures_insurance_execs_humiliate_wingnuts/

WEDNESDAY, MAY 7, 2014 12:52 PM EDT

After hailing "report" claiming just 67 percent of Obamacare enrollees paid premiums, here's why they're silent now
SIMON MALOY

This morning, a slate of health insurance industry executives sat down in from the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee for oversight and gave their estimates for how many people who signed up for health coverage through the Affordable Care Act actually paid their first month’s premium. This data is key when determining the early success or failure of the ACA – a person who signs up for coverage because they have to, but doesn’t pay for that coverage, can hardly be considered “enrolled.”

Across the board, the health insurance executives testified that the payment rate for premiums was somewhere between 80 and 90 percent, while stressing that these data are preliminary and that outstanding payments are still coming in.

This data was a stinging rebuke of the Republicans on the very committee to which the executives were testifying, who had issued a report last week claiming that the premium payment rate was actually 67 percent. That report, which was based on incomplete data and rigged to produce a low number, was met with derision by journalists and observers who saw it as a transparent ploy to create a damaging anti-Obamacare talking point.

Conservative media, however, ate it up. “White House tries spin move on gloomy Obamacare numbers,” said Fox News. “The enrollment totals were bogus and worse than expected,” clucked Townhall’s Guy Benson, who later sneered at the White House’s pushback on the report.

National Review’s Jim Geraghty scoffed at the idea that the House Republicans’ data were inaccurate:

You think all those insurers withheld all the good data? Vox and the administration kept emphasizing that these figures don’t include all the procrastinators who signed up in the final weeks. Okay, but why would those folks be so much more diligent about paying their bills? If they’re procrastinators, isn’t there a good chance they’ll be a little lax about sending out the check to pay the premiums on time?

[dem in texas]

1. Many people were waiting for their policy number and an invoice so they could pay

My daughter signed up in Dec. to be effective on Jan 1. She did not get her policy number or a billing invoice until around the 10th of January and she had to call to get them to send it.