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White House touts incomplete Obamacare applications as sign of success

Josh Peterson Tech Editor
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Desperate to recover from the federal Obamacare exchange’s failure to launch, the White House is touting incomplete applications in California as a sign of success for its federal health care agenda.

An analysis by Millard Brown Digital estimated that in the first week after the Oct. 1 launch of HealthCare.gov, 99.6 percent of the site’s visitors did not enroll in health care coverage, leaving 36,000 people who actually enrolled.

The Obama administration expected half million enrollments nationwide over the first month.

On Friday, in order to rescue the program’s image, White House published an infographic touting numbers reported by the Los Angeles Times on Tuesday.

“After two weeks, Californians have started nearly 95,000 applications through the state marketplace,” said the White House.

California’s state marketplace, Covered California, released the number of applications as evidence of strong consumer interest in the program. The state did not, however, release its total number of enrollees.

The White House infographic also touted the estimated 9,500 people enrolled in Washington, 40,000 enrolled in New York, and almost 10,000 people enrolled in Kentucky, as well as testimonies from people who successfully enrolled in a health-care plan.

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