Last week, the House Energy & Commerce Committee put out a mendacious report claiming that insurance company executives had submitted data to them showing that just two thirds of ACA private plan enrollees had paid their first month's premium. ACA signups tracker Charles Gaba shot that rotten fish in a barrel within an hour of the report's release:.
Gaba was the first of many; the claim was widely debunked. That didn't deter the Committee from calling health insurance executives to a May 7 hearing, presumably to ratify their statistical legerdemain. Unsurprisingly, the hearing, conducted by the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, did not go as planned. Jonathan Bernstein marvels at the manifestation of an apparent feedback loop:
The bubble is apparently more airtight even than Bernstein and Drum fathomed, because the executives' prepared testimony had already hit the newswires before the hearing started. Bloomberg's Alex Wayne had the whole gist in a story that ran on Wednesday morning, prior to the hearing:
...they're VERY clear about what they're claiming: that as of 4/15/14, only 67% of all QHP enrollments via Healthcare.Gov had paid their first month's premium, right?
Well, there's a serious problem right there, because out of the 8 million or so enrollments as of 4/15, only 5 million of the first month's premiums were even due.
Gaba was the first of many; the claim was widely debunked. That didn't deter the Committee from calling health insurance executives to a May 7 hearing, presumably to ratify their statistical legerdemain. Unsurprisingly, the hearing, conducted by the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, did not go as planned. Jonathan Bernstein marvels at the manifestation of an apparent feedback loop:
But yesterday, a House subcommittee invited insurance company executives to testify and, according to the Hill, Republicans on the panel were “visibly exasperated, as insurers failed to confirm certain claims about ObamaCare, such as the committee's allegation that one-third of federal exchange enrollees have not paid their first premium.”Kevin Drum piles on:
We don’t have to rely on reporter interpretations (here’s another one). It made no sense to hold the hearing unless Republicans were (foolishly) confident that the testimony would support their talking point, instead of undermining it.
The only plausible explanation is that closed feedback loop. Either members of the committee managed not to be aware of the criticisms of their survey, or they mistakenly wrote off the criticism as partisan backbiting.
Obviously Republicans were caught off guard at yesterday's hearing, and that could only happen if they really and truly believed their own flawed survey. And that, in turn, could only happen if they get pretty much all their information from Fox News and don't bother with anything else.
The bubble is apparently more airtight even than Bernstein and Drum fathomed, because the executives' prepared testimony had already hit the newswires before the hearing started. Bloomberg's Alex Wayne had the whole gist in a story that ran on Wednesday morning, prior to the hearing:
