"Just 51,000 people completed Obamacare applications during the first week the Healthcare.gov website was online"
There is reasonably good data that says that CA had 28,000 "completed applications" and NY had 40,000 as of a few days ago. So I'm not sure where the 51,000 number comes from.
One possibility is that it represents the applications processed for just the Federal Exchange System which covers 14 states. New York and California and 35 other states have their own State run Exchange Systems.
Another point: Completed Applications do not equal Enrollments despite the common assumption that they do. In the long run many and perhaps most of those who complete their applications and are found to be qualified will sign up. But many, many of these will be pushed off to Medicaid.
At this point there is very little data on actual enrollments. Here is what I have found so far:
Kentucly 171
Maryland 326
Washington 916
This projects to a total Obamacare Enrollment of less than 500,000 in 6 months using an Excel model that I built. So to get to the 7,000,000 that Obama thinks he needs to have a viable system the Obamacare sign-ups have to increase by well over a factor of 10 if they are going to make it.
Time will tell on that.
Thanks for your research and the numbers you provided.
51,000 people completed the ObamaCare applications?
That’s total Bull-loney. Not sure when the Brits decided to go into the tank for Obama, but based on EVERY single source from this side of the pond - there is no way 51,000 people could get past that FUBO excuse of a website and get enrolled by now.
That is absurd.
Washington State is over 10x that even if you don't count Expanded Medicaid. From a Tuesday NBC article:
Washington state said 9,452 people have fully enrolled in coverage set to begin Jan. 1. Most of them, about 8,500, are going to be covered by Medicaid, the government insurance program for low-income people, with the remaining 916 covered by health plans sold by private insurers through the online state marketplace.Another 10,000 people have completed applications for coverage from private health insurers through the exchange but have not yet paid for it. Exchange officials said they believe that many, if not all, of those people are waiting until December to make their initial premium payments, as Dec. 15 is the deadline for payment receipt for coverage to begin Jan. 1.
"The number of applications we've received is a strong start to our six-month open enrollment period," said Richard Onizuka, CEO for the Washington Health Benefit Exchange. "While we've seen a high level of initial interest, we know that individuals will continue to shop and wait to purchase a health plan until much closer to the effective start of coverage on Jan. 1, 2014."