GOP lawmaker subpoenas ObamaCare enrollment data

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) on Tuesday issued a subpoena to the agency responsible for implementing ObamaCare, requiring it to turn over all the data the agency has about how many people have enrolled in the healthcare exchanges.

Camp previously requested the data from Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Marilyn Tavenner at a hearing last month but says the agency has refused to provide it.

He is demanding the documents by Friday.

{mosads}“Administration officials … have been provided with status reports about the number of people who may have enrolled in the exchanges,” Camp wrote in his letter to Tavenner. “However, you refuse to make those reports available to policy makers. Congress needs to know what you know so Congress, the American people’s representatives, can also take corrective action.”

Earlier on Tuesday, Tavenner told the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee that the enrollment data would be released next week. However, CMS has not said what day it would be released, or whether the data would be provided in a lump number, or with a breakdown that shows what kinds of consumers are enrolling and how they’re doing it.

Camp indicated he wanted details about the data. In a release accompanying the letter, his office noted the lawmaker was asking CMS to “provide all data the agency has on enrollment in the Exchanges.”

Camp’s letter says his committee is worried that the botched rollout might have prevented the administration from hitting its enrollment targets, which he says could lead to a spike in premiums if enough young, healthy consumers aren’t added to the risk pool.

“Congress may need to act to mitigate this crisis,” Camp continued. “We are past the point of rallies, rollouts and revisionism. Congress and the American people need the facts.”

The Obama administration has been under pressure from lawmakers to update the public with the number of enrollees but has argued that the data hasn’t been released because the early numbers are not reliable.



Tavenner on Tuesday reiterated that there have been more than 700,000 applicants to the new health insurance marketplaces, with about half coming through the federal exchange.


House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) released documents last week that show there was only a trickle of successful enrollments in the federal healthcare exchanges in the days after the ObamaCare website went live on Oct. 1.



The documents show six enrollments on the morning of Oct. 2; 100 by that afternoon; and 248 on the morning of Oct. 3.



The administration has noted that the Massachusetts healthcare exchange, implemented by then-Gov. Mitt Romney (R) in 2006, had only 123 enrollees in the first month.

 Tavenner said she expects slow early enrollment for those seeking insurance by Jan. 1, followed by an influx of young and healthy consumers who will bombard the exchanges before the March 31 enrollment deadline.