18 Apr 2014 Obama Uses Phony Statistics to Sell ObamaCare

Claims that 8 Million Have Signed Up for the Exchanges Are Suspect

ObamaCare Has Not Resulted in Three Million Young People Gaining Coverage or Protected 129 Million People with Pre-Existing Conditions

Washington, D.C. – In an article today in the Federalist titled “Why ObamaCare’s Enrollment Triumph Will Prove Fleeting,” National Center for Public Policy Research Senior Fellow Dr. David Hogberg challenges the numbers the Obama Administration used yesterday to claim ObamaCare is working.

Yesterday President Obama claimed that 8 million people had enrolled via the exchanges. Not only does that number fail to account for the enrollees who have not paid their premiums, it also fails to account for people who will leave the exchanges for employer-based coverage or Medicaid.

“A study of the California exchange found that accounting for those factors could, by the end of the year, reduce enrollment in Covered California to less than 60 percent of what it is today,” said Dr. Hogberg. “Assuming those factors play out nationwide, the final number of exchange enrollees will be far less than 8 million.”

In a follow-up email to the President’s speech, the Department of Health and Human Services claimed that 3 million young people had gained coverage via their parents’ insurance because of ObamaCare.

Two weeks ago the National Center released a study by Dr. Hogberg showing that statistic is bogus. It inflates the number of young people gaining coverage by including both gains in private and public coverage. Further, an examination of Census Bureau data suggests the number is closer to 258,000.

“The fact is we have no clue how many young people have gained coverage through their parents,” Dr. Hogberg. “The numbers flying around are too unreliable for President Obama to be using them.”

Finally, the email claimed that due to ObamaCare, 129 million Americans with pre-existing conditions no longer have to worry about being denied coverage or being charged higher premiums.

But research shows that barely 1 percent of the population under age 65 was denied insurance due to a pre-existing condition. In fact, barely 107,000 people — .04 percent of the population under 65 — signed up for ObamaCare’s risk pool for people with pre-existing conditions.

“The problem of pre-existing conditions has long been exaggerated for political purposes, so it’s not a surprise to see the Administration using the discredited 129 million figure,” said Dr. Hogberg. “This Administration has proven shameless when it comes to using bogus statistics.”

Other health care publications by Dr. Hogberg are available here, and his March 11 testimony at the U.S. Senate on the problems with government-run health care systems can be viewed here.

The National Center for Public Policy Research, founded in 1982, is a non-partisan, free-market, independent conservative think-tank. Ninety-four percent of its support comes from individuals, three percent from foundations, and three percent from corporations. It receives over 350,000 individual contributions a year from over 96,000 active recent contributors.

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