The discovery that the federal government was padding Obamacare enrollment numbers by including nearly 400,000 dental plans has prompted calls from members of Congress to find out "who knew" of the deception and why the administration still is using the "Jonathan Gruber playbook."
Gruber is the MIT economics professor the White House paid $400,000 to help develop and promote Obamacare who has been caught repeatedly on video explaining deception was necessary to pass the bill because "stupid American voters" didn't know what was good for them.
Now it's been revealed that the Obamacare enrollment figure released recently by the administration was padded by including the 400,000 dental-only plans.
Officials with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said the enrollment figure for Obamacare as of Oct. 15 was 6.7 million, far short of the estimates.
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Federal officials said in September the number, now apparently conceded as incorrect, was 7.3 million.
"Faced with large numbers of Americans running for an exit from Obamacare, instead of offering the public an accurate accounting, the administration offered numbers that obscured and downplayed the number of dropouts," said Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
"Now they're saying this was just a 'mistake.' The claim that this was only accident stretches credulity," he continued. "The administration misreported Obamacare's enrollment figures not once, but twice, and officials cautiously changed their statements from 'health plans' to 'marketplace coverage,'" he said.
"HHS must provide a clear and detailed account of who knew about this decision and when they knew it. This administration still appears to be calling its Obamacare transparency plan from the Jonathan Gruber playbook: dismissing the American public's right to know with the same deceptive arrogance that helped them pass the bill in the first place," Issa said.
According to a Bloomberg News report Thursday, HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell called the mistake "unacceptable."
The error was discovered by Republican investigators working for Issa's committee.
Bloomberg reported the "mistake" "partly obscured the attrition of more than one million in the number of people enrolled in medical insurance."
It was in September when officials testified there were 7.3 million Americans enrolled in marketplace coverage. Then in November, officials provided enrollment reports on those members, and it was found that nearly 400,000 were from standalone dental plans.
"By including nearly 400,000 dental plan enrollments, CMS padded their September figure and obscured the fact that Obamacare's health plan coverage dropped from an expected eight million signups in May 2014 to 6.9 effectuated enrollments in August," Issa's report said.
Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, added, "Since the Obama administration first announced they reached their enrollment goal last spring, the actual numbers have dramatically ticked down while costs have gone up.
"Creative accounting aside, there are still many more questions the administration needs to answer regarding these numbers," he said. "For one, how many of these individuals were kicked off their previous plans because of Obamacare's crushing mandates? Despite claims by this White House that the health law and its execution have been transparent, the facts continue to tell a different story."
Hatch already has introduced legislation that would overturn both employer and individual mandates in Obama's signature law. He's also proposed repealing other provisions of the federal law.
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