In March of this year, the Obama administration announced that despite the completely botched roll-out, they were projected to hit their goal of 7 million enrollments by the deadline. Many conservative media figures were skeptical: Fox News host Sean Hannity straight up accused the Obama administration of “cooking the books,” while Rush Limbaugh noted, “when have they not lied about Obamacare?”
At the time, liberal media watchdog group Media Matters attacked Hannity, Limbaugh, and the hosts of Fox’s “The Five,” in a piece entitled “Meet The Obamacare Enrollment Truthers“: “On the final day of open enrollment for the Affordable Care Act, right-wing media have resorted to echoing Republicans and accusing the White House of “cooking the books” on the latest enrollment figures.” (REATED: Fox’s ‘The Five’ SLAMS Media Matters: ‘Inaccurate, Erroneous And Shameful’ [VIDEO])
The only problem: the so-called “Obamacare enrollment truthers” turned out to be right. The administration admitted today that its recent figures included “400,000 dental plans… falsely pushing the final number past the administration’s enrollment target…” (RELATED: CMS Propped Up Obamacare Enrollment Total With Dental Plans)
As late as April, the administration was actually providing accurate data to the press. After that, they stopped releasing data, and the last two reports “mistakenly” included the dental enrollments which, again, was coincidentally enough to push enrollments past the 7 million target. Without including dental plans, only 6.7 million were enrolled as of October 15.
Can we expect an apology from Media Matters in the coming days? With history as our guide, probably not.