ObamaCare’s exchanges need people — preferably young, healthy people — signing up and forking over cash to avoid a “death spiral” spike in premiums for older, sicker people. The good news is, people in Washington state are actually signing up. Now for the bad news:
Obamacare’s defenders often point to states like Washington to prove that the law is succeeding. However, the Evergreen State is signing up vastly more people for Medicaid than for private insurance.
Through the first two months of enrollment, Healthplanfinder, the state’s health-care exchange, has enrolled 176,468 Washingtonians in coverage. Over 91,000 are newly eligible for expanded Medicaid and more than 66,000 were currently eligible but were not enrolled. That leaves only 18,131 residents who purchased private policies.
Altogether, that means that eight-and-a-half times as many people have signed up for Medicaid as have enrolled in private insurance.
Yeah. They’re signing up for the dole, and not to become paying customers.
Colorado is supposed to be another one of ObamaCare’s success stories, but at last count only 6,001 had signed up here. And they won’t reveal the Private Insurance:Medicaid ratio, either.
Tick, tock. Still three million enrollments, out of slightly more than three million enrollments, to go by the end of the year.
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