Ever since the White House was able to right itself after the Healthcare.gov rollout disaster, there hasn't been nearly as much attention paid to how the president's signature achievement is actually performing. But according to a report from the Huffington Post, we now have an answer: quite well!
Citing an anonymous senior administration official, HuffPo reports that the number of Obamacare enrollments to date is no less than 4 million, meaning the program is on-track to just miss the 7 million sign-ups the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicted would occur by the end of March. Considering the federal exchange Web portal, Healthcare.gov, was out of action for nearly a month, these numbers are considered by the White House and many of its allies to be encouraging.
A statement from the administration, given in advance to HuffPo, reads:
With individuals and families enrolling in coverage every day, we continue to see strong demand nationwide from consumers who want access to quality, affordable coverage. Consumers are shopping and enrolling in plans on HealthCare.gov every day; system error rates are low and response times are consistently less than half a second. Our call center has handled more than 12 million calls so far and is open 24/7 to assist consumers in English, Spanish and more than 150 languages.
However, it's not yet the case that all of the major questions concerning Obamacare's rollout have been answered. The number of new enrollees who have paid their first month's premium is unknown, for example (although insurance companies estimate that number to be about 80 percent).
Still, the news is overwhelmingly good for those who want to see Obamacare succeed. And as HuffPo notes, it's only likely to get better as the end-of-March deadline for enrollment gets closer and more people rush to register.
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