Dems tout successes in state exchanges

Democrats on Tuesday pounced on a rare piece of good news about the ObamaCare rollout, touting a report in the Los Angeles Times about an enrollment surge in the state-based exchanges.

We interrupt the handwringing in DC for this bulletin: health care sign ups are surging; state exchanges on target. http://t.co/fHFM8e98KG

— David Axelrod (@davidaxelrod) November 19, 2013

According to the Los Angeles Times report, “enrollment is surging” in the 14 states that opted to run their own healthcare exchange under the Affordable Care Act. The report says that many of these are “on track to hit enrollment targets for 2014 because of a sharp increase in November.”

“‘What we are seeing is incredible momentum [on ACA enrollment]’ said Peter Lee, director of Covered California” http://t.co/4APxfLhtmA

— Adam Jentleson (@AJentleson) November 19, 2013

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has said that 106,000 people selected private health plans under ObamaCare in the program’s first month, with an astounding 75 percent of the those coming from just 12 states that run their own markets (an additional two states, plus the District of Columbia, didn’t report).

{mosads}The HHS breakdown showed that more than one-third of total enrollees, or 31,000, came from California. The Los Angeles Times report says the state has “nearly doubled that in the first two weeks of this month.”

“Several other states, including Connecticut and Kentucky, are outpacing their enrollment estimates, even as states that depend on the federal website lag far behind,” the newspaper report says, citing state officials. “In Minnesota, enrollment in the second half of October ran at triple the rate of the first half, officials said. Washington state is also on track to easily exceed its October enrollment figure, officials said.”

But not all states running their own exchange have had that level of success.


Oregon, which has often been spotlighted by liberals as having implemented one of the country’s more ambitious healthcare overhauls, has yet to enroll a single person because of problems with its website launch.