Carney: October ObamaCare Enrollment Will Be ‘Lower Than Anticipated’
ACOSTA: "Just very quickly, the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee over in the House, Dave Camp, has issued a subpena for enrollment numbers by close of business tomorrow. Is the president, or is this White House instructing CMS, HHS to deliver those numbers?"
CARNEY: "I don't have anything on the subpena. I would tell you that we're cooperating with oversight. We've addressed the issue of enrollment numbers. If the purpose is to point out, which I'm sure it is, that enrollment numbers will be low for October, take it from me, they'll be low in October. We've acknowledged that, they were always going to be low, and that was even when we did not expect the problems with the website that occurred so, what is our responsibility is to make sure that the data is assessed, and made accurate before it's released publicly, because there are so many inputs here when it comes to the collection of data. So that process will take place. I believe, Marilyn Tavenner remarked in a hearing earlier this week, that as we've said before, that data will be available in the middle of November, which is consistent with the way this kind of data is released for other programs. So, that remains our plan."
ACOSTA: "If she says by mid-November, you're saying by mid-November. That potentially could mean that you may not comply with the subpena."
CARNEY: "I'm not the Councel, so I don't have a response to the subpena. I can tell you that -- or to the reports of the subpena, I haven't seen it myself but, we're working on a schedule -- I mean, let's just focus, again, on the purpose of an exercise like that, which is clearly to make political hay out of what we've already acknowledged. The websites not working well. It hasn't been working well for the first month of the rollout. It's improving daily, but it's not where it needs to be. In large measure because of the problems with the website, the enrollment figures will be even lower than the low numbers that were anticipated because of the nature of these kinds of programs, and the way that people tend to enroll when you have a deadline six months later."