Politico's Nather: Obama Can 'Spike the Football' Because Obamacare 'Is Beating Expectations'

David Nather at the Politico apparently wanted to make sure that those who don't follow the news closely see a triumphant headline ("Obama Spikes the Football") and a congratulatory opening paragraph at their computers, tablets, and smartphones.

Sure, the Politico reporter gradually threw in all kinds of qualifications after that, but his mission is largely accomplished: Cause those who don't click through to believe that Obamacare is functioning as intended, and — especially in the headline — communicate the message that the debate about the statist health regime's existence is really over. He can say that he did his job while at the same time keeping most people away from the more complicated reality. In that sense, Nather is right there with reporters at ABC and CBS who claim without verifiable evidence, as Rich Noyes at NewsBusters noted earlier this afternoon, that the program has achieved "a major milestone." Excerpts follow the jump (bolds are mine):

Obama spikes the football






That "cushion" argument doesn't wash, and Nather himself washed it out in paragraphs most people won't read:




The range of "enrollees" who haven't paid is therefore between 1.2 million and 1.6 million. Either number takes you below the original 7 million goal now-former Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius bought into as an achievable goal last year.

But we're not done knocking down that enrollment number:



"As expected"? Obviously, David Nather doesn't understand, after over six months of exhibiting such behavior, that the administration will only dole out information if and when it's ready, and the only if and when it supports their cause.

As to the number of newly insured, a post at Hot Air references a Rand Corporation study which "estimated (that) 36% of exchange enrollees (were) previously uninsured." Given that the estimate was before the final enrollment surge, and bravely assuming that every last-minute buyer was a new enrollee, you still subtract at least two million more from Obama's 8 million "enrolled." Nather made no attempt to quantify this problem.

But the administration got what it wanted from Nather: a glowing headline and a celebration of an "achievement." Thanks to his holding the doubts until later paragraphs, they're really not concerned that too many people will see through the hype.

Parting thought I: Never forget that this is a program in which people legally have to enroll to avoid a tax penalty (it was a definite penalty then; thanks to administration waffling, it's now a possible penalty). Perhaps the best question to ask is: What is the program's compliance rate? Given that the Census Bureau has screamed for years that an admittedly inflated (but surely still quite large after corrections) 45-50 million Americans were uninsured, the result is surely a small minority of those who theoretically had to enroll. Original drafts of Obamacare in 2009 called for putting non-enrollees in jail if they didn't pay the individual mandate penalty.

Parting thought II: Obama is spiking the football well before he has gotten into the end zone. Reminder: It’s not a touchdown if you release the ball before the goal line.

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.

Tom Blumer
Tom Blumer
Tom Blumer is a contributing editor for NewsBusters.