Well it would appear that in an effort to scam more people into signing up for Obamacare, what’s considered by some as being a prize worth winning, is now being offered as an incentive. Because now, if you can believe it, what one group is now offering up as a way of getting supporters of the law to get busy signing up more victims of Obamacare, is an all expense paid trip to meet none other than the guy who this thing is named after, Barry "Almighty" himself. Yup, we now have an advocacy group tied to Barry attempting to entice volunteers to get out there and drum up last-minute enrollment in Obamacare by offering a free trip for two winners to Washington to meet ‘The Big "O".
It seems that Jimmy Messina, who’s none other than Barry’s campaign manager in 2012, sent out a recent email to what was called millions of supporters, the purpose of which was to urge more people to volunteer to, as he says, spread the word about all of the benefits available under the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare. Recipients of this email were directed to an online link to sign up for the six-week sign-up campaign conducted by Organizing for Action (OFA), the leftist little group that’s simply a spinoff of Barry’s re-election team. "Millions more need to get covered before this year’s final deadline on March 31st — you probably know a few folks yourself," the website states.
To boost enrollment in Obamacare, OFA is dangling the offer to volunteers of free airfare to Washington and a free hotel stay, a package reportedly worth about $1,400, to meet Barry backstage at the group’s national organizing summit on Feb. 25. Two winners will be chosen at random, the group said, and will be able to bring guests with them on the trip, although I’m not sure who covers the cost of the guests. Obamacare requires most Americans to sign up for health insurance coverage by March 31 or face a penalty. As of Jan. 24, the government claimed that more than 3 million people had enrolled for private health insurance through the ACA exchanges.
The administration set a goal of 7 million enrollees, although now they claim they never did any such thing, by the end of March. The enrollment push comes just days after a report by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) raised new criticisms about Obamacare, saying the program would create a disincentive for some Americans to work full time because its subsidies decrease as a worker’s income rises. Former Barry adviser David Plouffe said that over the next six weeks, OFA "will be working hard to make sure that Americans have the facts they need to get covered before the enrollment deadline just weeks away." Sure they will.
All of this very likely stems from the fact that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced that enrollment in the Obamacare private exchanges increased by 1,146,071 in January which was down from the 1,788,000 enrollees that HHS claimed had signed up in December. That would seem to suggest a drop-off of approximately 500,000, or 29 percent. Yet I think it fair to say that this underestimates the true extent of enrollment drop offs. The HHS reporting period for December was four weeks, beginning on 12/1 and ending on 12/28. The reporting period for January was five weeks, beginning on 12/29 and ending on 2/1.
It should be pretty obvious by now, and to even the most casual of observers, that the administration will not reach the original CBO estimate of 7 million enrollees by the deadline at the end of March. The real question is, how far short will they fall? If February’s enrollment rate matches that of January, the Administration will be able to claim 916,000 more enrollees in the current reporting period, for a grand total of about 4.2 million. That is 60% of the initial CBO estimate with a month to go before the end of open enrollment. On the other hand, it is hard to tell whether matching the pace set in January is reasonable for February. Personally I believe very little of what I hear.
But one thing is for sure, the total enrollment of 3.3 million reported by HHS is most likely more than a bit of an overestimate. At this point, industry insiders estimate that about 20% of people whom HHS claims are enrollees have not paid their premiums. Meanwhile, hard data from a handful of states suggests that the number of non-payees may be larger. If the insiders are right, then the real level of enrollment right now is just 2.6 million, which puts the administration at just 38 percent of the original target with two-thirds of the enrollment period now finished. I’m sure if we’ll ever truly know how many folks have signed up for this disaster.
So anyway, with this new added ‘incentive’ to go out there and shake the tree in an effort to find more people to hoodwink into signing up for Obamacare, I’m quite sure the lies, that we already know have been told, to prospective enrollees, will only escalate both in number and in the level to which benefits get exaggerated. Obamacare is really a good deal for no one except the Democrats who, now that they are well on their way to being able to control what healthcare you are able to get and ant what cost, are, as we have seen, completely unwilling to do anything to actually fix it. While at the same time they’re running away from it as fast as they can in what is the lead up to November’s elections.
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