ObamaCare 2016 Open Enrollment - Three Data Points Does Form A Trend

Despite poor turnout by the uninsured on the state and federal ObamaCare exchanges, Congressional Republicans have remained largely silent on the issue of the underperforming healthcare exchanges and rightly so.

During the inaugural 2014 open enrollment period only 1.4 million of the 6.7 million individuals who purchased a healthcare plan through one of the state and federal healthcare exchanges came from the nation’s pool of uninsured non-elderly.  By the end of the second open enrollment period an additional 2.3 million joined the ranks of the nation’s insured.  Combined, the result of the two open enrollment periods decreased the nation’s number of uninsured nonelderly by roughly 3.7 million.

(Note:  Since the writing of this blog HHS has released new data which reduces the number of uninsured nonelderly who have purchased and maintained a healthcare plan through the exchanges significantly) 

The Obama Administration has never played up the enrollment through the healthcare exchanges and rightly so as they have been horribly off of projection.  The administration’s target for the 2014 open enrollment period was to insure 7 million of the nation’s long term uninsured and to increase that number to 10 million by the close of the 2015 open enrollment period.  They missed both projection by a significant amount.  It is important to note that these targets were the very same that were used by Democratic lawmakers, and others, during the pitch to get the American public on board with the president’s namesake law.

Republicans have as well remained relatively quiet on the failure of the healthcare exchanges to attract the uninsured although for a different reason. 

Two data points do not form a trend therefore, it would be disastrous for Republican lawmakers to publically call the program, still in its infancy stages, a failure based on such a limited amount of data, despite the healthcare exchanges obvious failure.  The stakes are so high for Democrats that such a challenge would be met with a litany of rebuttals which of course would be difficult to refute on the sole basis of two open enrollment periods.  But all that changes in less than nine months.

The administration is already fearing the worst for the 2016 open enrollment period and have every reason to.  They are at a total loss as for what to do about the poorly performing healthcare exchanges and to be honest, there is nothing short of a miracle that can be done. 

Driven by an even larger penalty for not complying to the federal mandate to obtain healthcare insurance coupled with what was then believed would be lower insurance premiums, the administration originally projected that 12 million of the nations uninsured nonelderly would take advantage of tax subsidies offered through the ObamaCare exchanges during the 2016 open enrollment period.  These projected 12 million individuals, along with the 10 million originally projected to have obtain a qualified healthcare plan during the first two open enrollment periods, would have raised the number of healthcare plans sold to the uninsured nonelderly to an astounding 22 million by the close of the 2016 open enrollment period if the healthcare exchanges were to perform as planned.

But reality speaks far louder than projections and the administration knows that it is all but a mathematical impossibility to achieve its original enrollment goals, it can’t even come close.  And so, Republican lawmakers sit and wait for that 3^rd data point which will establish an irrefutable enrollment trend of failure. 

There will be no excuses that can be made; no claims of inaccurate or unreliable enrollment data; no more saying that the law needs time to work; and most of all, no more spreading the narrative that republicans are targeting ObamaCare simply because they don’t like the president.  If the coming open enrollment period does not produce a significant number of long term uninsured signing up for a qualified healthcare plan, the fate of the law will be signed, sealed and will just be waiting for its finally delivery.  And the time to be delivered will come almost immediately.

If the healthcare exchanges fail to deliver in 2016 it will become one of the major talking points for the 2016 presidential election and with such a large number of republicans having thrown their name in the hat you can be assured that they will come together for the one common cause of staging an all-out assault on ObamaCare and the 2016 Democratic hopefuls who continue to support the law.

It will be impossible for the “party of care” to justify leaving between 10 and 15 million individuals uninsured above the 30 million originally projected by the administration.  As well, it will be impossible for democrats to justify keeping a law on the books that instead of making insurance affordable to all has priced healthcare insurance out of the reach of the average American even with subsidies.

Republican lawmakers have been criticized for not being more aggressive in their attempts to repeal and/or dismantle ObamaCare, waiting for this third data point is the reason why!