By Noah Rothman
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) joined MSNBC host Richard Lui on Monday to discuss the number of Affordable Care Act beneficiaries released by the Department of Health and Human Services over the weekend. She offered a novel suggestion for why enrollment figures fell short of projections: the GOP successfully convinced the public that the law was repealed.
While 1.1 million have enrolled, 3 million enrollees were expected at this point and 7 million are needed by March 31, 2014, in order to ensure the program is financially viable. Norton posited that the enrollment figure is lower than expected for a number of reasons, including the fact that millions believe the Republican Party succeeded in repealing the law.
“The goal as has been said, it’s seven million people signed up by the end of March,” Lui observed. “Can that happen?”
“Oh, sure,” Norton replied. “When that fine is going to kick in, you’re going to see people trotting to sign on like you’ve never seen it before.”
“What we have been battling now is, first, every time the House couldn’t think of anything else to do, it had a big debate on repealing Obamacare,” Norton continued. “So, there are millions of people out there who think it was repealed.”
“So, there was no way to break through that very easily,” she concluded.
Watch the clip below via MSNBC: Video at link:
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/dem-congresswoman-obamacare-sign-ups-low-because-millions-think-gop-repealed-the-law/
