On Tuesday, the White House confirmed that more than seven million Americans signed-up for coverage through the Affordable Care Act, undermining the claims of critics who seized on the law’s troubled early rollout to predict that measure could never attract enough Americans to succeed. Below are some of the worst predictions after the administration published the first enrollment figures in November of 2013:
1. House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH)
“Above all, this report is a symbol of the failure of the President’s health care law… It is a rolling calamity that must be scrapped. [CNN]
2. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA)
“Pretty stunning…Just another day in a series of mess-ups in Obamacare.”
3. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)
4. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA)
“But this Administration will trudge ahead. Keep the doors open. Thousands of people enrolled instead of millions. They just released a number this week for the 36 states using the malfunctioning federal Exchange. Fewer than 27,000 people. Including people who haven’t actually committed to purchase the plans … those who have put it in their shopping cart….So the Administration will limp along with this pitiful sign up process hoping to get people properly assigned to health plans.
5. House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-OH)
He called the numbers “staggeringly low.”
6. Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-AR)
7. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA)
“The 27,000 enrollments through federally facilitated exchange pale in comparison to the millions of Americans who have lost their health insurance under ObamaCare… It is time for the president to finally acknowledge ObamaCare isn’t working and to delay the law, in fairness to families and individuals.”
8. Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS)
“The numbers released today are indicative of failure. Not just the failure of a website, but a failure of the underlying law, a failure to keep promises to the American people, and, above all, a failure of leadership.”
9. Rep. Lynn Jenkins (R-KS)
“Today, we learned only 371 Kansans have been able to successfully sign up [in October] for a health care plan on the federally run Obamacare exchange. And only a mere 106,185 total Americans have been able to sign up on both the federal and state exchanges across the country. These numbers are abysmal; the administration has not met even 25 percent of its enrollment goal for the first month.”
10. Rep. Tom Marino (R-PA)
11. Rep. Tom Cotton (R-AR)
12. Rep. David Camp (R-MI)
“Even if this data was an accurate picture, the administration would need to enroll 68,000 people per day to meet their year-end goal…However, the website isn’t even designed to handle that much traffic and is currently capable of only handling less than half that much… With the little data we have so far, I fear we could see a fundamental breakdown of the insurance market with coverage gaps and skyrocketing premiums — pricing millions of Americans out of health care, yet still forced to pay the individual mandate tax.”
Update:
During the Nov. 18, 2013 broadcast of his radio show, Mike Huckabee said: “To compare that, 281 people in New Hampshire were issued permits to hunt moose. So I mean, the fact is, you’ve got more people wanting to go moose hunting in New Hampshire than want Obamacare.”
Update:
This post was updated on April 1 to reflect the latest enrollment news.