ObamaCare numbers: Even less transparency

Finding out who is actually covered under ObamaCare just became more difficult. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, or HHS, has announced that it will no longer be regularly reporting on the law’s progress. Not only does this announcement mean that it will be virtually impossible to obtain information on the law’s progress...

Finding out who is actually covered under ObamaCare just became more difficult.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, or HHS, has announced that it will no longer be regularly reporting on the law’s progress.

Not only does this announcement mean that it will be virtually impossible to obtain information on the law’s progress before the November elections, but it also leaves many unanswered questions on what the law has accomplished to date.

The administration has already been facing significant criticism over the lack of transparency contained in the ObamaCare enrollment reports.

For example, the reports define an enrollment as someone who has selected an insurance plan. Without information on who has actually paid their first month’s premium, the actual number of covered individuals is difficult to determine.

The administration has also failed to report on how many of these enrollees were previously uninsured. The government’s original enrollment projections for 2014 were based on reducing the number of the nation’s 48 million uninsured by half through private coverage and Medicaid expansion.  These goals were revised in September of last year, but continued to assume that the vast majority of exchange enrollments would be previously uninsured individuals.

According to national survey data from McKinsey & Co., however, as few as 26 percent of ObamaCare exchange enrollees were previously uninsured.

Additionally, only those who have paid for a plan have actually obtained coverage. Nationally, according to the survey, it is estimated that 87 percent of enrollees have actually paid. Only about 71 percent of the previously uninsured, however, reported paying for their coverage, McKinsey & Co. found.

Unless federal lawmakers pass and the president signs legislation requiring HHS to issue enrollment reports, we will know even less about how many Americans were moved from the ranks of the uninsured to private coverage. Perhaps that is the point.