CMS official: ObamaCare enrollment data will be released next week

ObamaCare enrollment data will be released next week, according to the federal official leading the rollout of the healthcare law.

{mosads}Marilyn Tavenner, the head of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, committed to releasing the information at a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee hearing on Tuesday.

The Obama administration has been under pressure from lawmakers and the media to update the public with the number of enrollees. Health and Human Services secretary Kathleen Sebelius testified that the data hasn’t been released because the early numbers are not reliable.

Tavenner on Tuesday reiterated that there have been more than 700,000 applicants to the new healthcare marketplaces, with about half coming through the federal exchange. She also said CMS had a target of 800,000 enrollees by the end of November.

House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) released documents last week that show there was only a trickle of successful enrollments in the federal healthcare exchanges in the days after the ObamaCare website went live on Oct. 1.

The documents show six enrollments on the morning of Oct. 2; 100 by that afternoon; and 248 on the morning of Oct. 3.

The administration has noted that the Massachusetts healthcare exchange, implemented by then-Gov. Mitt Romney (R) in 2006, had only 123 enrollees in the first month.

Tavenner said she expects slow early enrollment for those seeking insurance by Jan. 1, followed by an influx of young and healthy consumers who will bombard the exchanges before the March 31 enrollment deadline.