White House Lowers Expectations on ObamaCare Enrollment Numbers

REPORTER: “Secretary Sebelius testified that the Administration would not have reliable enrollment information until the middle of next month, which is why it will be provided then. I guess I’m trying to reconcile how there will be reliable information at the middle of next month when in fact the website won’t be finished until the end of next month, which is to say, why is the—“
CARNEY: “—Well that again is shorthand, which is, so I hope you don’t use it in your thing because it misrepresents what we’ve said. The website has been functional. It’s just been poorly functional. It has, people have submitted applications—“
REPORTER: “[unintelligible] Not reliable information, she said—“
CARNEY: “—Well the reliability issue has to do with the inputs coming from all different directions, including the federal marketplaces, but also states, also applications and enrollees, enrollments done by phone and by, by mail as well as through in person enrollment in these centers across the country. So, you know, I think if you look at the middle of November as the time you would release information that couldn’t be finalized before the last day of October, based on the kind of data that’s released for similar kinds of programs, that’s pretty standard practice. So you take it all in, you collate it. If you’re asking me will enrollment be low, the answer is yes because that was always gonna be the case.”
REPORTER: “And we know the experience [unintelligible] Massachusetts.--”
CARNEY: “--Yeah, so I think it will better than 123. But it, that was what Massachusetts saw in its first month.”