The Daily Mail reports that only 51,000 people signed up for Obamacare via Healthcare.gov during its first week, falling far short of the Obama administration’s expectations.
MailOnline credits “two sources inside the Department of Health and Human Services” with providing “an exclusive look at the earliest enrollment numbers:”
The career civil servants, who process data inside the agency, confirmed independently that just 6,200 Americans applied for health insurance through the problem-plagued website on October 1, the day it first opened to the public.
Neither HHS nor the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services would comment on the record about the numbers. Enroll America, the president’s organization of health care ‘navigators’ who are charged with helping Americans sign up, didn’t reply to a request for information about its level of success so far.
The White House also did not respond to emails seeking comment.
The Congressional Budget Office is hoping for at least 7 million enrollees by the end of the 6-month open enrollment period to keep Obamacare financially afloat. At this rate, total national enrollment would be approximately 2 million, including state-run exchanges.
The report comes after a Comedy Central interview with HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius earlier this week where she claimed she had no idea how many Americans had signed up for Obamacare.
“I can’t tell you,” Sebelius told “Daily Show” host Jon Stewart, “because I don’t know.”