The Department of Health & Human Services has just issued its report on ObamaCare enrollments. It is time to drink the tears of your Republican neighbors. Not only did ObamaCare exceed enrollment expectations, but 85% of the enrollees are receiving some degree of subsidy. And nearly 70% of enrollees are white, proving that freeloading is a multiracial American tradition.
Key findings from today’s report include:
8,019,763 people selected Marketplace plans from October 1, 2013, through March 31, 2014, (including additional Special Enrollment Period activity through April 19th). Nearly 2.6 million signed up in the State Based Marketplaces and over 5.4 million in the Federally-facilitated Marketplace. About 3.8 million people, including nearly 1.2 million young adults (ages 18 – 34), enrolled in the Health Insurance Marketplace plans in the sixth and final reporting period, which began March 2 and concluded on April 19. Those 3.8 million individuals represent nearly 90 percent growth over February’s cumulative enrollment.
Of the more than 8 million:
54 percent are female and 46 percent are male;
34 percent are under age 35;
28 percent are between the ages of 18 and 34;
65 percent selected a Silver plan, while 20 percent selected a Bronze plan; and,
85 percent selected a plan with financial assistance.Today’s report measures enrollment as those who selected a plan.
The federal Marketplace also reported, for the first time this month, the race/ethnicity of its enrollees. The application for coverage through the Federally-facilitated Marketplaces (FFM) contains questions on race and on ethnicity, both marked as optional. Thirty-one percent of enrollees did not report their race or ethnicity or chose “other.” However, of those enrollees who reported race and ethnicity:
62.9 percent of those reporting are white;
16.7 percent are African American;
10.7 percent are Latino;
7.9 percent are Asian;
1.3 percent are multiracial;
0.3 percent are American Indian/Alaska Native; and,
0.1 percent are Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander.
Based on the latest census data, a surprising level of Asians took advantage of ObamaCare, possibly owing to their tendency to work for small businesses that don’t provide health insurance. Blacks are slightly overrepresented in the sample. In contrast, Latinos are lagging behind. I wonder if the explanation for that has some cross-over that also explains their low voter participation. Some kind of civic disengagement, perhaps?
In any case, if you think ObamaCare is just a giant transfer of white people’s hard-earned money to shiftless minorities, the numbers don’t bear that out. Maybe if you look into the S-CHIP and Medicaid numbers you will find more evidence of racial wealth transfer. On the other hand, if you take the 8,019,763 who signed up for ObamaCare and add in the 4.8 million people who enrolled in Medicaid and CHIP, and the 5 million who got ObamaCare-compliant plans outside the exchanges, and the people who got to stay on their parents’ plans, it amounts to a lot of moochers!
Also, too, 34% of enrollees are younger than thirty-five.
Republican tears taste so sweet!
