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House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) on Wednesday expressed skepticism that 29,000 people had enrolled in ObamaCare the first two days of December.
With problems lingering with the back end of the federal health exchange website, Cantor said he does not know what the number really means.
{mosads}“You know, the administration likes to say that they are transparent,” he said on Fox News. “But what does 29,000 enrollees really mean? We don’t know.”
A total of 29,000 had chosen a plan on Dec. 1-2 — the days following the administration’s November deadline to get the site working for most users — according to a report in Politico.
Those numbers included people who had chosen a plan but not necessarily paid their first premium, which is not due until later this month.
The administration, which has not confirmed the number, reports that hundreds of thousands of people have visited the site in the first few days of December, but insurance companies continue to report glitches in the backend of the website.
The administration acknowledged Wednesday night that the portion of the website that sends applications to insurance companies has sometimes contained incomplete data, but the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has not disclosed the error rate on these types of transactions.
“We don’t know,” Cantor continued. “Now we are hearing reports of some kind of new temporary payment plans to insurance companies. Imagine this: We don’t have income verification systems in place because the president delayed that portion of the law. We don’t have the ability to say to insurance companies this person is eligible for a subsidy or not. We are told now that the back end of the system doesn’t do that yet.”
Cantor took an indirect jab at Obama by complimenting Vice President Biden on his outreach, saying the same does not go for the president.
“That’s part of the problem,” Cantor said. “And it’s not that way with all those in the White House. In fact, I have had a great relationship with the vice president. I’m able to bounce ideas off of him. But, unfortunately, somehow, the communication doesn’t always happen with the president.”
On the same show, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Obama is acting stubbornly by protecting the healthcare law at all cost.
“He said, ‘I’m going it spend the last three years,’ maybe he is not planning on doing much else, but is he going to protect this monstrosity,” he said.