If HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius were a corporate officer or CEO, she would have been fired a long time ago. She oversaw the terrible rollout of Healthcare.gov. Now she’s lying about what constitutes success in the program.
This month, Sebelius touted the Obama administration’s figure of 4 million enrollments as success. She also said that seven million was never the administration’s goal.
That 4 million number is itself dubious. The government cannot even say how many enrollees have paid their premium. About 6 million Americans lost their healthcare due to Obamacare. The president and Sebelius are counting ordinary Medicaid enrollments among Obamacare enrollments, even though those enrollments would have happened anyway. They’re essentially touting increasing the number of Americans who have had to go on a version of welfare as “success.”
But for the sake of argument, let’s give them the 4 million. It’s just over half the number that Sebelius herself said would define success back in September.
Sebelius says in the clip above, “I think success looks like at least 7 million having signed up by the end of March.” She didn’t cite the CBO. She set 7 million as the floor, the bare minimum measure of success.
A corporate CEO caught lying like Sebelius does here would be gone. Fired. They might be facing an SEC investigation and the possibility of fines or jail time. Sebelius is lucky that she works for a boss who doesn’t value competence or honesty very highly.
By the way, wanna see a joke? Here’s Buzzfeed’s Andrew Kaczynski claiming that Sebelius has “changed her mind” on the 7 million number. That claim is no more honest than Sebelius’ own.
h/t Guy Benson
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