Another Huge Obama Win: 12 Million Have Chosen Private Policies Through Obamacare Exchanges

The ACA numbers guy (and all around genius) Charles Gaba has some new numbers and Republicans aren’t going to like them.

Yeah, see, it turns out (brace yourselves for the shock) that Republicans were wrong about Obamacare. I know, right? Almost 12 million people have chosen private policies through Obamacare exchanges, which is close to none…

But 12 million more.

However, combined with the other off-season/tax SEP numbers reported from (most) of the state exchanges, this (including today’s Minnesota update of 64K QHPs) does bring the grand total number of confirmed 2015 QHP selections up to exactly: 11,995,315.

Technically speaking, they’re still about 5,000 QHPs shy of the 12 million mark, but give me a break; this number doesn’t include normal Off-Season Enrollments (via life changes) in nearly every state since 2/22 or the tax season SEP enrollments from a half-dozen state-based exchanges.

Therefore, it’s quite safe to call it:
• 2015 ACA Exchange-based QHP Selections have officially broken the 12.0 million mark, with over 9.0 million coming from HealthCare.Gov.

Of course, when you throw in the missing tax season SEP / off-season enrollments, the actual total should be closer to 12.4 million or higher, and should finally reach my personal Open Enrollment Period target of 12.5 million by the end of May.

Here’s something that should concern Republicans, because you see, it turns out that even Republicans want their family to live (I predicted this years ago based on the fact that life over politics is pretty obvious and then there is the amusing note that many red staters don’t seem to know that they have signed up for Obamacare) and thus have signed up for plans through the exchanges. Oh, yes, the red states are flying into Obamacare.

It was pointed out in January of this year:

Republicans who thought that they were stopping the law by refusing to set up their own state exchanges have created a trap for themselves. Florida, Maine, Georgia, Michigan and North Carolina have all covered at least 40% of their eligible residents under the federal exchange. Arkansas also depends on subsidies to fund their “private option” plan. All of these states will face an immediate backlash if the Supreme Court rules that only states that have set up exchanges are eligible for subsidies.

I have already discussed the debunking of every single Republican Obamacare prediction here, but let’s just recall that Republicans like to claim that all of the Obamacare numbers represent Medicaid expansion.

And yet we have 12 million in private plans from Obamacare exchanges.

The exchanges based on competition.

Like a free market.

Which Republicans claim they are the sole advocates of.

President Obama has once again taken the Republican claims about Democrats and flipped them upside down. It was Obama who created record breaking private sector job growth, not a Republican. The last president to do so was another Democrat, former President Bill Clinton. So goes private sector job growth to the Democrat.

It was Obama who got Osama, even though Republicans claim only they, who no longer thought much about the man they told you was going to kill your family, can keep you safe. So goes national security to the Democrat.

And now, it was a Democrat who addressed our nation’s healthcare crisis by using a free market solution that opened the door to affordable coverage for everyone. President Obama did this while Republicans advocated for continued taxpayer subsidizing of too-big-to-fail Wall Street businesses. So falls real free market competition to the Democrat.

Thus we conclude today’s lesson in how Republicans no longer stand for the things they still say they stand for and once again, Obamacare is working. Obamacare is a success. It’s not perfect, but no one ever claimed it was. But you know why Republicans get to criticize Obamacare? Because they are choosing to do nothing, and when you do nothing, there isn’t anything to criticize except the failure to do something.

Another day, another Republican fail. Suddenly Republicans aren’t calling it Obamacare so much. But it was Obamacare when they slammed it and it is Obamacare now that they have been thoroughly proven wrong as they trolled the free market solution to our healthcare crisis.

Obamacare it is, and Obamacare is working.