From this week's Fox News Sunday, Sen. John Barrasso accused the Obama administration of "cooking the books" on the Obamacare enrollment numbers, but as Jason Easley at PoliticusUSA pointed out, it's more likely that he and host Chris Wallace are "trying to pass off some Republican book cooking of their own as fact, in order to portray the ACA as a total failure."
As ACA Signups Skyrocket Towards 7 Million Fox News Claims Obama Is Cooking the Books:
As the number of people who are enrolling in the ACA’s private insurance plans surges towards 7 million, Republican Sen. John Barrasso and Fox News Sunday teamed up to claim that President Obama is cooking the books.
Barrasso closed the segment by telling Fox News viewers not to be fooled (by things like facts and reality.) The truth is that ACA signups have now passed the 6.55 million mark. It is looking like the White House is going hit their original goal of 7 million enrollees by the 31st.
Republicans and Fox News are denying this fact.
Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) claimed that President Obama is cooking the ACA books, and Fox News Sunday’s Chris Wallace played along by asking questions about what we don’t know. Wallace relied on a McKinsey and Company study from February, which is before the surge in young people signing up started, to paint the ACA as a total failure. (The study that Wallace cited came from an organization that has refused to release their questionnaires and methodology.) McKinsey and Company has also consistently refused to disclose who is paying for their studies on the ACA.
Sen. Angus King did a good job pushing back at Barrasso and Wallace and their talking points on the enrollment period being extended, when it's basically allowing those already in line finish the process.
GOP senator: Administration 'cooking the books' on ObamaCare enrollment:
Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said Sunday that the Obama administration was “cooking the books” on enrollment figures for ObamaCare.
Appearing on “Fox News Sunday,” Barrasso said he wasn’t persuaded by statistics that said that more than six million people had signed up for insurance under the healthcare law.
“I don’t think it means anything,” he said. “People ... want to know, once all this is said and done, what kind of insurance will those people actually have.”
Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), who has offered legislation to make fixes to ObamaCare, said that it was a great victory for so many people to have signed up for insurance, and said he wasn’t concerned about the number of young people or uninsured signing up.
“They’re probably going to make that seven million target which was set two years ago,” King said. “Two months ago, if you had asked me, I would have said there’s no chance because the rollout was so bungled.”
King also said he didn’t have an issue with the administration massaging Monday's deadline for people to sign up for insurance.
“That’s just common sense. We do that all the time. I think the best example is people in line to vote,” King said.
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